


The Cell

by WrathOfMacy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Language, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Illnesses, Oral Sex, Sex, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:08:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 55,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26235403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrathOfMacy/pseuds/WrathOfMacy
Summary: “What the fuck happened, Malfoy?!” She exploded, her voice cracking as she turned toward him. “One minute I’m being tortured, convinced that I’m going to die in your family’s tacky drawing room, there’s spellfire, a crash that felt like a ruddy earthquake, and then I wake up here, with you of all people!”
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 316
Kudos: 666
Collections: Dramione Fics That Live In My Head Rent Free, The Dramione Collection





	1. Prologue and Chapter 1: Day 1, Trapped

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the playground that is my mind! Take off your coat and stay a while.
> 
> As a general rule I will be putting Author's Notes at the bottom of each chapter, however seeing as this is the first one, there are a few things I want to make sure everyone knows right off the bat.
> 
> This is generally a canon-divergent story that splits off from the trio's capture at Malfoy Manor. It's Dramione-centric, but there are some other pairings that will crop up here and there.
> 
> I do have some writing experience, but this is my first foray into fanfic content, so be gentle please. I'm happy to receive constructive criticism.
> 
> A couple other quick things: note the tags, this story does have sex, torture, violence, brief suicidal thoughts and explicit language. If that's not your jam, no hard feelings, please exit the ride now.
> 
> I am aware that per canon Hermione's 'Mudblood' scar is on her left arm, but for the sake of continuity later on in the story, I have switched it to her right (dominant) arm. I also take some liberties with wandless magic, so… yeah.
> 
> This story is mostly complete, however it is still being edited and will therefore be posted gradually. My plan is to drop a new chapter every Friday. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Beta love to TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade!

#  Prologue

“How did you get it?!” Bellatrix screeched, bending on all fours over Hermione’s prone body in the middle of the drawing room floor.

She could feel droplets of spit fleck her face, rancid breath washing over her as Bellatrix leaned in closer.

“Tell me how you got into my vault, mudblood filth! CRUCIO!”

Hermione had just enough time to register the increasingly crazed look in the sadistic bitch’s eyes before her body was wracked once again with blinding, searing agony. A scream ripped from her throat as her back arched off the floor, every nerve on fire.

The spell let up and her head lolled to the side, tears she hadn’t noticed she was shedding slid down her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose. Barely coherent, she saw a blurry outline standing stark and still near the corner of the massive stone fireplace. Dark and slim with a shock of white-blonde hair.

“So, the little girl wants to play,” Bellatrix cackled. “Okay, let’s play.” 

Hermione heard a rustling, but she couldn’t turn her head to see what it was. She blinked and her vision cleared slightly. The blob across from her was none other than Malfoy – Draco to be exact, seeing as there were presumably three of them floating around the manor. He was rigid, his lips pressed into a tight white line, icy gray eyes wide with… well, what exactly she couldn’t be sure.

Before she had time to analyze further her mind was flooded with a different kind of pain. An excruciating burning sliced across her right forearm. She opened her mouth to scream again but nothing came out, her lungs tightened and threatened to rip apart, like an over-wrung sponge, and all she could muster was a strangled gasp and a choking sound.

“Hermione!” She heard someone call distantly, the voice muffled. Bellatrix pulled away slightly and then dove back in with the knife before Hermione had a second to catch her breath. She wasn’t even asking any bloody questions anymore. While the blade dug into her arm, deeper and deeper, her whole frame began to shake.

Some distant part of her brain registered that this was a known after-effect of the cruciatus. Continued nerve pain, tremors, and, in extreme circumstances, grand mal seizures. She mulled that over as her jaw locked and her bladder, rather humiliatingly, released, soaking the inseam of her jeans.

Bellatrix hooted - “Aww, did little baby mudblood have an accident?”

Hermione’s body relaxed after a moment and Bellatrix raised the knife again. Her vision was starting to swim and sounds distorted, as if they were carrying toward her through a long tunnel. She wondered if this was it, if she was going to die here. She was in so much pain she almost wished it was. That it would just end.

As the demented witch lunged forward, several things happened at once.

“Expelliarmus!” someone cried, the knife soaring out of Bellatrix’s hand and clattering across the floor before coming to rest near the French doors.

“Hermione!” She heard the voice from before yell again, this time much closer. Shadows danced around the edges of her vision and she saw flashes of green and red light flying overhead.

There was a tremendous crash that shook the ground, a piercing scream, and then everything went black.

* * *

#  Chapter 1: Day 1, Trapped

> _We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry._
> 
> _\- John Webster_

* * *

* * *

The first thing she noticed upon regaining consciousness was the smell. A damp, musty scent, reminiscent of decay. It caught in the back of her throat and made her choke.

The second was that she was laid out in a bizarre position, placed on her right side with her top leg bent at the knee and resting on the ground in front of her, twisting her hips. Though the rest of her body registered the cold stone floor, her head was propped up on something lumpy that was stuffed beneath her ear. For as much as the room stank of rot, whatever was under her head smelled vaguely of cedar and mint. 

The third, but most clearly defined thing that she became aware of, was pain. Her right arm burned as if someone had dipped it in acid up to the elbow and her bones felt brittle, like they might shatter if she moved. Her skin stung and itched, the slightest friction from her own clothing raked across her sensitive flesh like sandpaper.

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes a sliver. It didn’t make much difference, wherever she was it was dark. A hiss slipped from between her teeth as she moved to push herself into a sitting position, betrayed by the shuddering muscles in her forearms.

She blinked again and the room became slightly clearer. The defining characteristic of her prison was that everything was grey. Grey stone walls met with grey stone floor and darker grey, or perhaps black, blankets lay heaped in one corner.

There was a large metal pail in another corner that she imagined was meant to serve as a toilet seeing as there was a stack of papery white rags next to it, and a heavy iron door was centered on the wall in front of her.

The only source of light, however indirect, filtered through a square opening at about head-height with tightly placed bars across it. From the slight wavering and flickering she thought there might be torches flanking the opening on the other side. The room was maybe six or seven meters square in all. 

“You kept seizing,” a low voice drifted from behind her shoulder. “I thought you might crack your head open on the stone.”

She whipped around to face whoever had spoken, which was a serious and rather painful mistake that almost made her lose consciousness again.

Propped in the corner nearest to her sat Draco Malfoy.

From what she could make out, he appeared rather unkempt. Blonde hair fell forward across his forehead and he was dressed only in black trousers and a wrinkled black button-down with the sleeves cuffed and rolled up around his elbows. One leg was extended forward, prostrate across the floor, the other bent and leaning against the wall, supporting his arm. His head was inclined, resting at the temple against his fist.

She looked down and realized that her make-shift pillow had been his jacket.

“How long have I been unconscious?” She asked, her voice rough and gravelly from screaming.

He shrugged without looking at her. “Eight or nine hours maybe?”

She started - “Harry and Ron, are they - “

“Weaslebee and Scarhead got out,” he sneered, “or at least I think they did.”

Okay. Okay, she could deal with that. She didn’t know what had happened to them, but at least they hadn’t died at the manor. 

“Where exactly are we?” she asked, her thoughts still a little fuzzy.

He finally turned his head and shot her a withering glare. “I don’t know. I was stunned and then I woke up here. About eight hours ago. It’s not anywhere in the manor, not that I’m familiar with.”

The events prior to her own loss of consciousness began to trickle back in, but they were so muddled with pain that it was difficult to piece things together.

“I remember I was being tortured and I…” wet my pants, she finished silently. Malfoy didn’t say anything.

She braced herself for a moment, before looking down and examining her right forearm in the pale grey light.

Mudblood.

The wound was still open and ragged, fresh blood sticky where it dripped down her wrist. She let out a shaky breath and swallowed the lump rising in her throat. In the context of her current situation, an unfortunate scar was the least of her worries. Look who she was friends with, after all.

With a quiet groan she got to her feet, reaching a hand out to steady herself against the wall. Her trousers were now, thankfully, dry, and if there was an odor it wasn’t detectible beyond the overall unpleasant stench of the chamber.

She started to slowly make her way around the outskirts of the room, sliding her hand up and down the stone blocks, looking for any change or potential weakness. When she got to the door she noted that there wasn’t a handle, just thick, seamless metal. Angling her head a little and rolling onto the balls of her feet, she confirmed that there were indeed torches in what looked like it might be a hallway. That too was grey.

She continued her circuit, ending in front of Malfoy, who hadn’t moved beyond his lips pursing in annoyance.

“I’ve already done that. There isn’t a way out.”

“Well excuse me for wanting to check,” she clipped back at him. “What wandless magic do you know?”

“A decent amount, but it seems like they have some kind of dampening ward on the room. My spells are only working at maybe a tenth of their usual power.”

Demonstrating, he extended a hand and muttered, “Wingardium Leviosa.” A small chunk of stone near his foot shook and skittered for a moment, as if it wanted to rise from the ground, before stilling again. She cursed under her breath.

While she and Malfoy had had their differences, to put it extremely lightly, he was right behind her in all but one or two classes, so it wasn’t something she could chalk up to user error.

She moved to the middle of the room and sank to the ground, crossing her legs and trying to clear her mind. She reached down and, despite the wards dampening outward exertions of magic, she was still able to feel her own power brimming within, bruised and battered though it was at the moment.

“Custodius revelare,” she whispered to herself. The effect was weak, weaker than she was accustomed to at least, but the spell did work. Although her eyes were shut she could sense the wards enveloping the room. Malfoy’s guess had been right, there was some kind of enchantment weaved through them, intended to dampen their magic.

Beyond that there were other, more familiar protections. Silencing spells, anti-apparation wards, wards disallowing animagi from transforming… the magic was old. Whatever or wherever this place may be, it was intended to hold magical beings captive long before they were locked in here.

“What are you doing?” Malfoy snapped, shaking her concentration and making her lose the spell.

Biting back her irritation, she replied shortly, “I’m checking the wards on the room.”

“I quite literally just finished telling you that magic doesn’t work here. Maybe you did hit your bloody, frizzy head…”

“ _External_ magic doesn’t work here. The spell I was trying to use occurs internally.”

He didn’t react to this information besides one brow twitching slightly. She couldn’t fault him – the charm was well outside the Hogwarts curriculum, something she had learned in the hopes it might be useful while traveling with Harry and Ron. He didn’t need to be such a prat about it though.

She rolled her eyes and repeated her spell again, going more slowly this time, attempting to prod at the wards and test them. Unfortunately, whenever she extended the magic beyond herself, it fizzled out, like droplets of water falling on a hot pan.

With a huff, she got to her feet and stomped back over to the wall across from the door before sinking down and wrapping her arms around her knees. The gravity of the situation began to settle in.

She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t actually know what had happened to Harry and Ron, or if they were even still alive. She couldn’t use her magic. Her Merlin-be-damned arm hurt so much she wished she _could_ use her magic just to lop it off. And her only company was Draco-sodding-Malfoy.

Her breath came fast and shallow and her eyes pricked with unshed tears.

“I don’t care if you’re panicking, do it quietly,” he snarked at her from across the room.

“What the fuck happened, Malfoy?!” She exploded, her voice cracking as she turned toward him. “One minute I’m being tortured, convinced that I’m going to die in your family’s tacky drawing room, then there’s spellfire, a crash that felt like a ruddy earthquake, and then I wake up here, with you of all people!”

“The other two thirds of your hellacious little trio made a break for it is what happened.”

“How though? You were there, and you were a hell of a lot more aware of what was happening than I was!”

“I was a bit preoccupied,” he growled at her without further explanation before running a hand through his already disheveled hair. He got to his feet and paced the length of the wall. “The crash was the chandelier; I don’t know what brought that down.”

“Who disarmed Bellatrix?”

“My mother,” he said quietly, after a beat.

Her brow furrowed as she attempted to process this information. Why on earth would Narcissa Malfoy, Madam Death Eater, Queen of the Purebloods and sister of Bellatrix Lestrange, do anything to help her?

“I can see the smoke coming out of your ears. I don’t know why she did it but Boy Wonder and his red-headed sidekick came running into the room at the same time. I didn’t see who cast what, but by the time the dust from the chandelier settled they were gone. Bellatrix was screaming like a… well, a mad woman. I think it was my father that stunned me.”

“Why would your father stun you?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re inconceivably annoying?”

“Answer the question.”

He looked like he would rather gargle bubotuber pus, but he finally said, “Because I failed to identify Potter. I think. I don’t actually know. I woke up in here just like you.”

She felt momentarily guilty for berating him – it wasn’t as if he were on the other side of the bars, he was just as trapped as she was. As she worked through his theory, trying desperately to fill in the gaps with her own fractured, disjointed memories, Malfoy sank back to the ground on her left.

“I don’t get it, why keep me alive?” She finally asked. Whether she was asking herself or Malfoy she wasn’t sure.

“Leverage,” he replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The minute Potter escaped your value spiked big time.”

She stared at the stone between her feet and said nothing.

oOoOoOo

The rest of the… Day? Night? Whatever it was passed in silence. Her stomach ached with hunger, but lately that wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Before being captured they had been living primarily on wild mushrooms and berries.

She loved Harry more than almost anyone, he was her best friend, her brother, but if he were here right now, she would wring his neck like a chicken for breaking the taboo in the woods and getting them into this mess.

In their hunt for Tom Riddle’s horcruxes they had survived Death Eaters, Ministry officials, dementors, splinchings, starvation, and a run-in with a giant snake that had taken up residence in a corpse, only to be taken down by Harry’s inability to properly filter his words. If the implications weren’t so dire, she would probably laugh at the absurdity of it all.

She was curled on her side, beginning to doze off with her head resting on the pile of moldy blankets, when the tremors hit her. Even though she knew, in a cerebral sense at least, that this happened after spending extensive time under the cruciatus, it was still a terrifying, helpless experience.

Unlike during the seizures her body didn’t lock up, but it shook violently. Her frayed, raw nerves screamed in discomfort and her limbs refused to obey when she tried to push into a sitting position. A sob slipped out of her as she crashed painfully onto her elbow and she saw Malfoy jolt awake in the corner.

“Granger? _Granger_?!” She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to reply.

Cursing under his breath, he crawled over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, which she recoiled from with a gasp, still shaking forcefully.

“Shite, right,” he said, seemingly realizing what was happening. In a move that shocked her, though she had no way of conveying that at present, he reached out and grabbed her left hand and began prodding at seemingly random spots along her palm and wrist with his long, pale fingers.

Initially the contact added to the irritation but, to her amazement, whatever he was doing started to help. The shaking became less violent and her breathing began to slow.

She was embarrassed to find that she was crying again, the wet tracks under her eyes betraying her. When she stopped moving entirely, Malfoy held her hand for another beat and then released it, sliding away from her toward the middle of the room and placing his head between his knees, interlocking his fingers behind his neck.

She dwelled for a moment on how rough his hands had been. Not that she had contemplated it much in the time she had known him, but if she had to guess she would have assumed they would be soft, free from any prospect of hard labor, but they were callused in the same places as Harry’s from gripping his broom and his wand repeatedly for years.

“Are you –“ she started, but her voice cracked. She swallowed and tried again. “Are you alright?”

He let out a dark, manic chuckle without lifting his head.

“I am confined, in a tiny stone cell, with a witch that I cannot stand, and that cannot stand me, waiting for what is very likely going to be extensive torture and probably a slow, painful death. You can’t go four hours without seizing and drooling on yourself, and to cap it all off, I’m bloody starving. I am sure as hell not alright. Nothing about any of this is alright.”

She self-consciously raised her hand and wiped away any traces of saliva around her mouth with the sleeve of her jumper.

As if on cue, a house elf appeared in the cell with a cracking sound, holding a metal tray. They both jumped and Hermione let out a small yelp.

The elf said nothing. He simply placed the tray on the ground near the door and popped away as quickly as he had come.

Curious, Hermione crawled forward and saw Malfoy doing the same in her periphery.

The tray held two bowls filled with some kind of brown stew, a small plate of crackers, two tin cups full of water, and two spoons.

On one hand, it was very possible the food was contaminated with something. Possibly veritaserum if they were going to try and question her again. On the other hand, starvation was a slow and painful way to die, one that she was already a little too close to for comfort if she was being honest, and if they wanted to kill her, she assumed they would have done so already.

Furthermore, she didn’t actually have many of the answers they were likely going to be looking for. She had no idea where Ron and Harry had gone, she didn’t know exactly how the sword of Gryffindor had come to be in their possession, the details were still muddy on that one, and she didn’t have any high-up intel regarding Order plans or strategy. They had been living in a bubble, on the run for months.

Of course there were the horcruxes, but she doubted Voldemort himself would interrogate her given that he was supposed to be out of the country, and the Death Eaters didn’t know enough to even ask questions that might lead her to give something away about those.

Like Malfoy had theorized earlier: right now, for better or for worse, she was valuable.

That in mind she reached forward for one of the cups and took a long sip of water while Malfoy looked on incredulously.

“Ask me something I wouldn’t normally be inclined to answer truthfully,” she said to him, placing the cup back down.

Without missing a beat, he shot at her, “Did you have Madam Pomfrey shrink your teeth after I hit you with that hex fourth year?”

She narrowed her eyes and gave him a scornful look but didn’t feel any particular compulsion to answer the question. “The water’s clean. At least, it doesn’t have veritaserum in it. I suppose it could still be poisoned...”

He reached forward and grasped the other cup before taking a deep draft himself, obviously concluding as she had that poisoning them wouldn’t make sense.

She decided to risk it with the stew too, grabbing the bowl and beginning to eat in earnest. It was extremely bland but surprisingly hearty with chunks of meat and potato. Malfoy mirrored her, finishing slightly more quickly and returning the bowl to the tray. If the meals were all like this and occurred with any frequency, she was liable to gain weight, which was sort of sad if she thought about it too much.

When everything was empty and replaced, the house elf reappeared with a pop. Hermione, closer and more alert this time, examined the creature.

He, or perhaps she, was definitely older than most of the house elves she had met, and he appeared to be in extremely poor health, worse off than even Kreacher. His hands were so heavily bandaged it looked like he couldn’t bend his fingers, and one of his eyes was milky white and unfocused.

“Wait,” she started to say, reaching a hand out, but he grabbed the tray and departed before she could ask him anything.

She chanced a look at Malfoy to see what he had made of the elf, but he appeared to be rather thoroughly examining the wall in front of him. With a huff she crawled back to the mound of dingy blankets and fell into a restless sleep.

oOoOoOo


	2. Day 2, Conversations in earnest

> _Humility has such power. Apologies can disarm arguments. Contrition can defuse rage. Olive branches do more good than battle axes ever will._
> 
> \- Max Lucado

Hermione woke slowly in the quiet of the cell, rolling onto her back and staring up at the dark, cavernous ceiling. Turning her head to the side, she saw Malfoy on the ground nearby. Well, everything was nearby given the size of the room, but he was only a meter or two away.

In the dim light, she studied his sleeping form. Pale, aristocratic features with a chiseled, angled jaw. In another life she had thought him too sharp looking, pointy, but here as he slept, she could see a softness in his face. His shoulders rose and fell rhythmically, and she noted his eyes flickering behind their lids.

He looked almost as poor as she imagined she did. He was thinner than she remembered, and his hair was lank and limp with dark, bruise-like circles under his eyes. He had stuffed his jacket under his head and had an arm curled up and around it.

With a start, her eyes fell on his other forearm, hanging downward across his torso with the sleeve still rolled up. It was turned towards him, but she could see the edges of the black ink, barely visible from where she was laying, but most definitely still there.

So, he was marked then. Harry had been convinced of it last year, since they had seen Malfoy bare his arm in Borgin and Burke’s, but they hadn’t had incontrovertible evidence.

Her eyes returned to the ceiling above her as she pondered the implications.

While it was unlikely, there was a chance that Malfoy had been placed in here with her with the intention that she would talk to him and reveal something of use to Voldemort’s faction. She almost laughed at the thought, as if they would be sharing secrets and plaiting one another’s hair.

Besides, it was unlikely that the pureblood prince would be forced to live in such squalor unless actually found guilty of some misdeed, although what a Death Eater could possibly consider a misdeed probably didn’t even register on her moral scale. Even then, she was having a hard time accepting it was the result of his misidentifying Harry.

She didn’t know what had happened to Malfoy after he fled Hogwarts with the rest of his merry band of butchers and psychopaths. Harry had said that he had lowered his wand when faced with killing Dumbledore, which was a small consolation, though she couldn’t help but wish he had had that particular moral crisis _before_ letting a pack of deranged murderers into the school.

She shifted her hips slightly and realized she had to use the loo. She looked toward the pail in the corner with disdain. While it seemed unlikely that they’d manage to maintain any semblance of privacy or dignity trapped in here together, and he’d already seen her in just about the most vulnerable, degraded state possible, she still balked at the thought of purposely going to the bathroom in front of her childhood nemesis.

She sat up and started to quietly untangle the mass of blankets that her head had been resting on. Suppressing a gag and breathing through her mouth when several dead bugs fell out, she separated the fabric into three individual pieces. Two she tossed sideways into the middle of the room near Malfoy, but the third she gripped as she climbed to her feet.

She heard a rustle and, out of the corner of her eye, saw him sit up.

“Here, help me,” she said over her shoulder.

“Of course,” he grumbled, pushing himself upright. “I live to serve.”

After several attempts, they managed to combine their weakened power to use a sticking charm on the top two edges of the blanket, fastening them on either side of the corner and placing the pail and stack of towels behind it.

It wasn’t much, that was indisputable, but it created the smallest illusion of privacy, and, given how things had been going thus far, it felt like a victory.

Malfoy moved to the furthest point from the corner and she ducked behind the blanket. After relieving herself, she noted that the contents of the bucket vanished. Another small comfort.

She stepped back out and gathered the dead bugs, throwing them into the pail where they also disappeared.

Curious, she attempted to reach her hand in, but it was deflected by an invisible barrier when she tried to push past the metal rim. Well, it appeared that if Malfoy really started to grate on her she wouldn’t be able to vanish her own head. Or his.

Moving from behind the blanket once more, she retreated to the other corner across the room and Malfoy wordlessly got up and took her place behind it.

She peered down and took stock of her arm. It didn’t look any better than it had the day before, but at least it didn’t look worse, and it was no longer actively bleeding.

Mudblood.

She remembered the first time she had heard the term, spat at her by the very person she was now trapped with. It had bothered her a lot; she wouldn’t lie about that if asked. Granted, she had been thirteen years old and was bothered by most things at the time.

First year she had recognized that certain students, particularly the Slytherins, held some sort of intrinsic disdain toward her, but she hadn’t known why. She had mostly chalked it up to her being a good student, a swot if she was honest, and friends with Harry Potter.

Only upon discovering the prejudice that was blood purity did it start to make sense; older students she’d never met wrinkling their nose when she walked by. Dirty blood.

Not dissimilar to racism or homophobia in the muggle world, prejudices that were surprisingly absent in the magical one, she was regarded as being lesser because of something entirely outside of her control. She thought it ironic that her blood was regarded as being tainted when in reality the purebloods of Britain had inbred themselves to near extinction over the past several centuries. She remembered the family tapestry at Grimmauld Place had looked more like a woven basket than a tree in some places.

She had theorised that muggleborns weren’t muggleborns at all, rather they were descended, however distantly, from squibs that had integrated into muggle communities after being rejected from magical ones.

She didn’t have any evidence of this though, and, beyond keeping track of pureblood lineage, the wizarding world seemed to have little interest in the topic and zero knowledge of the genetics potentially behind it.

Malfoy reappeared from behind the blanket and dropped to the floor at her side.

“What do you suppose they’re waiting for?” She asked, keeping her eyes focused forward.

“I don’t know, Granger. Maybe they’re waiting for one of us to kill the other. Entertainment value and all.”

“Why do you do that? We’re trapped in here together, the least you can do is attempt to be civil.”

“Because I don’t like you, and, point of fact, I think I was pretty fucking civil when I prevented you from biting off your own tongue yesterday.”

Her cheeks warmed at the reminder of her helplessness, but it sparked a question that had been nagging at her.

“How did you know to do the thing with my hand? I’ve never heard of a treatment for the cruciatus.”

He shrugged, still staring away from her. “It’s not my first time dealing with the effects of that particular curse,” he stated, tersely. 

“Did Bellatrix torture you too?” she asked, after a brief pause.

“No, she tortured my bloody goldfish. Would you shut up already? This place is close enough to my own personal hell without you firing off whatever stupid questions traipse into your swotty brain.”

She hissed with frustration. Just then the house elf from the day (night?) prior popped into the room, this time with a tray of food in his hands and a large, deep basin hovering just off the floor at his side. It was full of water and had a flannel draped over the edge.

Once again, before she had the presence of mind to say something or grab the creature, it disappeared, and the basin dropped to the ground with a thunk, the contents sloshing slightly.

This time the tray was laden with what looked like plain, dry toast and tin cups filled with water like the day before.

She assumed the bucket and flannel were intended for them to clean themselves, although given their surroundings that seemed like a losing battle, and she couldn’t imagine why whoever was holding them captive would care about their hygiene.

She ate her toast quickly, wanting something in her stomach before she actually did what she planned to do next.

While Malfoy was still nibbling at the crust of bread, a look of distinct contempt for the food plastered on his face, she crawled over to the water basin. She was able to dip her hand into this one, which made sense because it wasn’t intended to vanish the contents.

She soaked the flannel and raised it, taking a deep breath before laying it across her shredded forearm. A whimper slipped from her lips before she could bite it back and Malfoy looked over at her, his expression devoid of emotion other than perhaps a flicker in his eye.

She exhaled slowly through her mouth and then, with a shaking hand, she slowly patted the cloth across her wound, removing the dried blood. The ragged edges of the lacerations caught on the rough fabric of the flannel and she felt tears well up in her eyes, but she swallowed them back. She had had just about enough of listening to herself cry lately. 

As she dipped the flannel back into the basin, water clouding with blood and grime, she wondered if she should have offered to let Malfoy clean himself up before her. She figured she should go first in an attempt to limit the already astronomical chance of infection in her injury, but it occurred to her that he may not want anything to do with the flannel or basin now that her muddy blood was swirling through it.

She let out a soft snort at the absurdity of the thought and shook her head as she continued her ministrations. Why should she care if he was uncomfortable? His barmy aunt had been the one to carve her up like a Christmas goose.

Her arm was as clean as it was going to get and she wished desperately that she had a sterile, dry cloth to wrap it with, but the closest thing were the papery sheets in the corner of the room and she was too afraid they would shred and stick in the gashes. 

She haphazardly wiped her face, then her other arm and hands before dropping the flannel in the basin and crossing the room to settle against the wall again.

To her mild shock, Malfoy moved to the basin and dipped his hand in, grabbing the scrap of fabric and mimicking what she had just done, wiping his face, neck and arms. She got a better look at the mark on his forearm as he did, the vile snake winding its way across his flesh in stark relief.

When he was finished, he dropped the flannel and looked up, noticing her staring.

“Take a picture, Granger,” he sneered, before reclaiming his own corner of the room. She couldn’t help but notice that he rolled his sleeves down a moment later.

The elf popped in quickly, collecting the tray and basin, and was gone again before she could blink.

“I was just wondering when you got it.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because there is literally nobody else to talk to Malfoy. Merlin’s beard, can’t you be a human for five seconds?”

“I’ll tell you what,” he spat at her. “You tell me all about one of your most painful, unpleasant experiences, and then we can talk about my tattoo. Sound alright to you?”

They lapsed into silence again. She listened hard, but there was absolutely nothing to hear beyond the walls. She harkened back to her assessment of the wards – at the time she figured the silencing charms she detected were to keep people on the outside from hearing those within the cell, but now she guessed that they probably worked both ways.

She weighed the situation in front of her. She hadn’t any clue why they were here, beyond the general theory of leverage, nor how long they would be held captive together. Was it worth extending an olive branch to the boy who had spent the better part of her formative years tormenting and teasing her?

If she did, she reckoned the most she could hope for was passive civility, but it was better than being snarked and snapped at every time she opened her mouth.

“My parents,” she finally muttered.

“What?” he huffed at her.

“A painful, unpleasant memory,” she clarified, voice thick. “About eight months ago I obliviated my parents. Erased myself from their lives completely and sent them packing to a different country.”

“You…” Malfoy seemed momentarily puzzled by her confession, his brow pulled low over his stormy eyes. Clearly, he hadn’t meant for her to take his ultimatum seriously. “You did the right thing.”

“What?” she asked, taken aback.

“You did the right thing,” he repeated slowly. “Bellatrix and a few others went to your house back around Halloween. They figured if you weren’t there, they could at least get their rocks off torturing a couple of muggles.”

Hermione felt bile rise in her throat and choked it down. She had known that was possible, it was why she went through the painstaking process of creating Wendell and Monica Wilkins in the first place, but to hear it confirmed was chilling. The thought of Death Eaters traipsing through the warm, happy memories of her childhood home made her feel like something was shattering in her chest.

“Do you… do you know if the house is still there?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t exactly volunteer to tag along.”

Her mind was flooded with visions of her past. Christmases stringing popcorn to hang on the tree; summer days laid on a picnic blanket in the garden reading her books; evenings perched on a stool at the kitchen counter, working on homework while her mum sat next to her with a cup of tea.

She thought of her nextdoor neighbor, Emily, a skinny girl with dark blonde hair, slightly younger than herself, who used to play catch with her over the low garden wall. Had she been spared? Death Eaters had a tendency to burn whole sections of muggle neighborhoods to the ground in their revels.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Malfoy spoke again.

“It was the summer after fifth year,” he said quietly.

Her mind raced momentarily.

“Yeah, that was when I thought it happened.”

“Do you _always_ have to be such a know-it-all?” he snapped, shooting her an irritated look.

It was her turn to shrug.

“When we were in Knockturn Alley, the week before school started sixth year, we saw you show something on your arm to the shop owner at Borgin and Burke’s – Harry, Ron and I, that is.”

“What in the hell were you doing in Knockturn Alley?” he asked, sounding the slightest bit surprised, if deeply annoyed that they were even having this conversation.

“Following you, of course,” she responded with a chuckle. “Harry had it in his head that you were up to something nefarious. As it turned out he was right, but at the time I was half convinced he fancied you, he was so fixated.”

“Yeah, well, even an utter moron is bound to get it right a time or two.”

She disregarded the insult, because that’s just who Malfoy was, and paused before speaking again.

“What was it like, being marked?”

His face paled further, a feat given his natural complexion, and his eyes focused distantly for a moment.

“It was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced,” he responded tersely.

“Worse than the cruciatus?” she asked, her mind swimming a bit at the thought, trying to fathom something more agonizing than what she had experienced herself only hours prior.

“Worse,” he confirmed softly. “It’s not… it’s not just a mark. You’re tying yourself to him, literally letting a piece of his magic twist and claw itself into yours. It takes hours.”

“Did you volunteer to take it?” she asked, realizing with a start that she cared a bit more about his answer to that question than she was comfortable letting on.

“No,” he responded quickly. “Not really. But my father… he had just been captured at the ministry and the Dark Lord was furious. It wasn’t forced on me I suppose, but it wasn’t something that I could walk away from.”

She nodded, contemplating. She glanced over to find him already looking at her, seemingly gauging her reaction.

“I don’t blame you Malfoy,” she said defensively, lips pursed. “You’ve been a right prat to me over the years, but having your home taken over by a madman, your parents essentially held hostage… I don’t blame you.”

He snorted derisively. “Wonderful, my conscience is clear, and I’m absolved of my sins. I’ll sleep oh so soundly now, thank you Granger.”

She would have bought the sarcasm if she hadn’t caught the split second of disbelief that flashed across his face.

oOoOoOo

She woke with a start some hours later, the complete lack of natural light making it nearly impossible to accurately gauge time passing and throwing off her internal clock. The elf had just popped in and out, depositing another tray laden with stew and crackers.

She thought it must be around the same time he had done it yesterday. Before she made her way to the tray, she picked up a small chunk of rock from the ground near the base of the wall.

As Malfoy watched, having already started eating, she pressed it into the side of the stone cell and made two scratch marks, maybe three centimeters long, side by side.

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go – stage is set, cue the lights. 
> 
> I apologize that this week's chapter is a bit on the short side, but I promise I'll make up for it next week. Chapter 3 will be posted 9/18. 
> 
> Beta love to TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade!


	3. Day 4, Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The below contains excerpts from The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, and The Half-Blood Prince.

> _She finds it hard to trust someone_
> 
> _She's heard the words 'cause they've all been sung_
> 
> _She's the girl in the corner_
> 
> _She's the girl nobody loved_
> 
> \- Unbreakable, Jamie Scott

The elf came and went three more times before she decided to attempt to talk to him again. She knew that it very likely wouldn’t amount to anything, but it was one of the only potential avenues for escape available, and she had no choice but to explore any and all options.

It was, she thought, almost time for him to bring the second meal of the ‘day’, and she was poised near the door where the creature usually apparated in.

The previous 48 hours had passed with little event save for another, shorter period of tremors, and even less conversation. After telling her about having taken the mark, Malfoy seemed to retreat in on himself, falling silent.

Even while she laid on the ground shaking, he had prodded her wrist and hand without comment.

Hermione pondered briefly if this was what it was like to reside in a Buddhist monastery – taciturn looks, small movements that seemed louder than they were, nothing but the sound of breathing.

She had told Malfoy of her plan to ambush the elf, but he had done little more than shrug and point out that it was a useless exercise. She resented the fact that he was probably right.

Just then, the creature popped into the room, and Hermione’s hand shot out, grasping his tiny forearm before he had the chance to pop away again.

“Please, where are we? How do we get out of here?” she asked, desperation colouring her voice. His small frame was draped in a filthy pillowcase and his ears were ragged. He looked up at her, one milky eye unfocused, the other a watery, yellow-green orb, desaturated by the lack of light in the room.

His mouth dropped open and, after a split second of hope, Hermione released him and flung herself backward onto the stone floor with a shriek, ignoring the pain that shot up her injured limb.

Malfoy quickly shifted to his feet in the corner and stepped toward the elf before his eyes widened and a look of horror crossed his own features.

The elf’s mouth hung open to reveal a gaping hole and he let out a hissing sound that might have been a laugh, the skin on either side crinkling. Fleshy gums tucked behind his thin grey lips, entirely devoid of teeth. In the middle of his maw though, it appeared that someone had rather viciously cut out his tongue – the severed muscle sat tattered, lolling in saliva.

Hermione quickly crawled to the pail in the corner and retched violently, vomiting up what was left of the food in her stomach from the last meal. When she was done, a sheen of sweat on her forehead and gasping in ragged breaths, she turned to move from behind the curtain and looked around the room.

The elf was gone, and Malfoy was still frozen in place.

“I,” he swallowed hard. “I know where we are.”

Hermione, still shaking and trying to catch her breath, raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“I’ve only met one person sadistic enough to cut out their house elves’ tongues,” he explained, white as a sheet. “We’re at Lestrange Manor.”

oOoOoOo

As it turned out, their location had little bearing on their circumstances. While Hermione reasoned that of course the seventh circle of hell would be located in the home of Bellatrix Lestrange, she saw neither hide nor hair of the witch.

Adding to that the fact that they had absolutely no way to tell anyone where they were, it didn’t make much difference. They could have been on the moon. Malfoy seemed noticeably more rattled by the news, but she couldn’t say for certain why that was, and he certainly wasn’t volunteering the information.

Her mind drifted to Harry and Ron again. Even assuming they had got away, they weren’t any closer to finding another horcrux, and now they were without the tent, the Sword of Gryffindor, and Hermione herself.

While she didn’t consider herself particularly conceited, it was of note that she tended to be the one to plan and theorise within their group, and she didn’t know exactly how handicapped her absence would leave them.

She hoped they would give up the daft plan that Dumbledore had come up with - and make no mistake, she thought it was a daft plan - and get help from the many intelligent, and talented, witches and wizards in the Order.

Honestly, who sends three teenagers that haven’t even taken their NEWTs on a mission with almost no direction and even fewer resources? Not to speak ill of the dead, but she was half convinced the man had gone around the twist by the time he was murdered.

Hermione was pretty staunch in the belief at this point that Bellatrix was in possession of one of the soul shards, given her reaction to the thought of them entering her vault. That said, much like her location, she had no way to transmit this information to anyone that might put it to use. She only hoped her friends had overheard enough of her interrogation to draw the same conclusion themselves.

She was also fairly convinced that the dirty great snake Voldemort toted around was a horcrux. While it seemed distinctly unwise to put a piece of one’s soul into a living thing, Hermione had speculated that the more Tom Riddle split himself, the less stable and more irrational he became.

Whether or not that particular horcrux needed to die by the same method as the others was unclear. In the little documentation she had found on the darkest of magics, nobody had been reckless or foolish enough to do it. In theory, anything that killed the snake should kill that piece of his soul, the same as killing his human form now would kill _that_ piece of his soul.

The elf popped in with the tray and basin, shaking her from her reverie, and deposited them before leaving again. She maintained a healthy distance this time, her desire to examine him more closely having completely vanished.

Like the previous instance in which the basin had appeared, Malfoy began to eat while she took the opportunity to wash up a bit. After she had wiped her arms and face again, her open wound hurting just as much as the last time she had cleaned it, she wordlessly grabbed the hem of her jumper and guided it over her head until she was kneeling in just her dark blue bra and jeans. Living in a tent with two boys for the past several months had all but eliminated her sense of shame in regard to platonic nudity.

“Merlin, Granger!” Malfoy exclaimed, inadvertently glancing in her direction.

She rolled her eyes and proceeded to run the cool, wet flannel across her shoulders and down her abdomen. It was a far cry from a proper shower, but then she hadn’t had one of those since they had abandoned Grimmauld Place.

“Don’t be a child Malfoy, it’s just a bra, it doesn’t bite,” she scoffed at him.

“No, it’s not just a bra, it’s _you_ in a bra,” he retorted, staring resolutely at the wall in front of him with a grimace on his face.

“Should I be offended?”

“You should put your bloody clothes back on.”

Having finished anyway, she pulled her jumper over her head and made to unbutton her trousers.

“I swear to Circe, I will drown you in that basin,” he threatened in a low voice, shooting daggers in her direction.

She raised her hands in surrender and replaced the flannel before moving to eat her own food.

Malfoy finished and made his way over to the bowl of water, proceeding to wash his face. Pausing to glower at her for a moment, he turned away and began to unbutton his shirt. Her lips twisted into a satisfied smirk.

The smile faded as she examined him, back still turned. She was correct in her assessment that he had lost weight. While she had never seen Malfoy in any state of undress before, she was fairly certain he didn’t used to be quite this lean.

Muscles were still clearly visible, but so were bones, his rib cage and shoulder blades starkly apparent under alabaster skin. As he twisted to dunk the cloth back in the basin, she noted the edges of several raised, rope-like scars wrapping diagonally across his chest and hip. Harry.

Her food wasn’t gone, but she suddenly found herself with a distinct lack of appetite.

Setting her bowl back on the tray, she saw him redressing out of the corner of her eye and found herself grateful for it.

While she was a woman, and, loathe though she was to admit it, Malfoy was rather fit, she didn’t want to dwell on the time her best friend had almost become a murderer. Much like when they were caught by the snatchers, many of Harry’s difficulties in life were a direct result of his impulsive behavior and lack of planning.

She didn’t fault him for it, having spoken extensively during their travels, particularly in Ron’s absence, about his upbringing.

The snatchers, almost killing Malfoy, losing Sirius, getting thrown out of occlumency training with Snape… weeks ago in the tent she had reminded him yet again that he needed to shield his mind, and he had confessed the true reason behind his short-lived lessons with the potion’s master coming to an end. She had scolded him for nearly an hour.

Occlumency.

While Harry had been rubbish at it, Hermione had always entertained the idea that she might be quite good at organizing and shielding her thoughts, though she had never had the opportunity to test that theory.

It occurred to her now that, though occlumency was still magic, it was internal magic, and she knew that the Death Eaters had Legilimens within their ranks, Voldemort himself included. Leaving her mind completely unguarded in her current circumstance felt perilous.

“Malfoy,” she started, turning toward him. “Do you happen to know anything about occlumency?”

He looked up and stared at her, blinking, as if she had just asked him if he had ever given birth to a hippogriff.

When he didn’t respond she continued, “I just thought that perhaps it might be something to do. Er, something to work on, that is… it doesn’t require external magic and I’ve considered learning in the past…” she trailed off.

“Why on earth would you think that I know anything about occlumency?” he asked her, not bothering to mask the curiosity, nor the disdain in his voice.

“Well, it seems like a Slytherin thing to learn, doesn’t it?”

“Okay, suppose I say that I do know occlumency,” he said after a moment, narrowing his eyes slightly, “what exactly would you want me to do?”

“Teach me,” she shrugged. He fell silent again and appeared to be contemplating the options before him.

“Okay, now I know that you know,” she sighed, exasperated. “Just give me the basics.”

“I can ‘give you the basics’ until we die of old age,” he huffed, “but they’re useless unless they’re tested with legilimency.”

“Okay, then test me.”

“Contrary to your apparent belief Granger, I have no desire _at all_ to go sifting through your mind. Besides, legilimency, unlike occlumency, is offensive magic and, as such, it operates externally.”

She considered the implications of him being in her head, the threat of what he might find in there, and weighed it against the prospect of slowly going insane, locked in this cell together.

Risky though it could be for Malfoy to find out some of the things she knew, it seemed more perilous in their current situation to not even attempt to learn to shield her mind. For the time being, he was the lesser of two evils. He was the devil that she knew. 

“What if you make contact with the person while you do it?” she mused, contemplating what he had said. “Physically connect your magic so it doesn’t have to move through the dampening wards?”

“So,” he started slowly, “to be clear, you not only want me wandering around in your head, you also want me to… touch you?”

“Well when you put it like that…"

“No, no, do go on. Are you trying to tell me something Granger?”

She rolled her eyes. “Never mind, if you aren’t going to take it seriously, forget about it.”

She began mentally sifting through what she knew about occluding. Harry had said Snape told him to, quite literally, empty his mind, but, Harry’s personal failure aside, that tactic didn’t seem terribly effective.

She knew from the little reading that she had done that there were other techniques that revolved more around mentally cataloging your thoughts and memories versus trying to stuff them down altogether, and that seemed like something more suited to her.

Personally, she didn’t think Snape had tried all that hard either.

“Alright.”

“What?” she asked, shaken from her thoughts.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he acquiesced it in a haughty tone, as if he were granting her the biggest favor in the world. She chose to ignore it.

“Oh. Good, then… So how do we start?”

oOoOoOo

“Okay,” Malfoy said, trepidation clear in his voice, “you’re sure you’re ready?”

“No,” she shot back, thoroughly aggravated about being asked, for the fifteenth time in as many minutes, if she was ready. “I have no idea if I’m prepared. I’ve quite literally never done this before.”

It had been a little over 24 hours, or so she thought, since their initial conversation regarding mind magic, the vast majority of which she spent meditating and sorting through her thoughts and memories.

Malfoy had explained some of the different systems and techniques that people generally used. There was, of course, the one Snape had attempted to teach Harry. In essence you “empty” your head, meaning that you shove away all conscious thought and erect shields around your subconscious mind and memories.

The issue here is that once someone was in, they were completely in. There was no hierarchy, no prioritization. Your most intimate secrets were given the same protection as what you had had for dinner the night before. This explanation reinforced her belief that, although it may work for Snape, it was a shite method.

Other approaches were more cerebral. The example Malfoy had used for her was a library, stacks full of books, aligned side by side and broken down into different parts of her life. Relationships, interests, knowledge on certain topics, all were divided into individual volumes and tucked away, the most important of them stuffed behind heavier protections. You still put a ‘wall’ around it, but certain bits of information were more secured than others.

While she liked the theory, she thought that the library imagery was a little too on-the-nose in her case and decided to take a different approach.

“I can’t explain how much I don’t want to wander into a memory of you snogging Weaslebee.”

“Well, you can rest assured there’s a zero percent chance of that happening.”

He gave her a somewhat skeptical look before crossing the room and settling cross-legged on the ground in front of her.

“Are you sure –“

“Malfoy, for the love of Merlin, please let’s just get on with it.”

She wriggled forward on her bum until their knees were almost touching and extended her hands for him to grab. It reminded her a little of a partner’s yoga class her mother had dragged her to once.

Reaching out and taking her hands in his they both took a deep breath. She tried to ignore the warmth of his skin where it connected with hers. It felt foreign in the cool, damp chamber.

After she braced herself one last time, she looked up and met his eyes, icy grey connecting with deep, earthy brown. She felt her heart beat once. Twice.

“Legilimens,” he whispered.

While she had had her method firmly cemented in her mind, it slipped the minute she felt his invasion, completely thrown by the unfamiliar sensation. The magic moved like a flexible probe – not painful, but certainly not comfortable, and most definitely foreign. She could easily see how this could be used for torture, and the vulnerability of her current position wasn’t lost on her.

She recognized that she had no hope of using her original plan now and she threw up a haphazard wall around her mind, but her panic and lack of concentration left cracks and openings that Malfoy easily dove through.

Once he was in, he did what she assumed many people did under these circumstances. He looked for himself.

He found her most clear, recent memory involving him, their preparation for this very exercise in fact, and followed it backward like a thread.

_“At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in, they got in on pure talent.”_

_“No one asked your opinion, you filthy little mudblood.”_

She cringed as the scene transitioned, moving to later that same day.

_They had just gotten back from Hagrid’s and she was sitting on her bed in the empty dormitory, quietly sobbing into her knees, clutching a crinkled, half-written letter to her mum that she ended up not actually sending._

She’d forgotten how large her front teeth used to be.

The memory was pushed to the side as Malfoy followed the chain along. Having given up on shielding, she instead shoved the probing thread away from her more intimate thoughts and pushed another scene to the front of her mind.

_“Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic?" said Malfoy. "And he’s supposed to be our teacher!"  
_

_Harry and Ron both made furious moves toward Malfoy, but Hermione got there first - SMACK!  
_

_She had slapped Malfoy across the face with all the strength she could muster. Malfoy staggered. Harry, Ron, Crabbe, and Goyle stood flabbergasted as Hermione raised her hand again.  
_

_"Don’t you dare call Hagrid pathetic you foul—you evil—"  
_

_"Hermione!" said Ron weakly and he tried to grab her hand as she swung it back.  
_

_"Get off, Ron!"  
_

_Hermione pulled out her wand. Malfoy stepped backward. Crabbe and Goyle looked at him for instructions, thoroughly bewildered.  
_

_"C’mon," Malfoy muttered, and in a moment, all three of them disappeared into the passageway to the dungeons._

_"Hermione!" Ron said again, sounding both stunned and impressed._

Satisfaction radiated through her, both in the present and in the memory. Seemingly aggravated by being forced to view his own humiliation, Malfoy pushed forward again, this time with more force, making her wince at the pressure.

“Stop!” She shouted, pulling her hands away from Malfoy. “That was too much, you’re pushing too hard.”

“Keep me out then,” he challenged her, leaning back on his hands with a derisive smirk on his face. “If you let me into your mind you can hardly be surprised when I take advantage.”

“I’ve never done this before Malfoy! Can’t you be… I don’t know, gentler?”

He snorted, “If you’re looking for gentle, Granger, you are talking to the absolute wrong person.”

It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that. She knew full well who Malfoy was, what he was. But in here, alone, with nobody else for company, it was too easy to forget. She so badly wanted him to be somebody that she could trust, somebody that she could take the smallest amount of comfort in.

“Just… give me a second and we’ll try again.”

He shrugged nonchalantly and examined his fingernails.

She took a deep breath and dropped her eyes shut, trying again to visualize how she was going to keep him out. It was more difficult than she imagined, splitting her concentration between the solid, outer shield, while also keeping her inner mind locked and organized. 

“Okay, let’s do it,” she said, plopping down in front of where he was still seated. He sat up and took her hands again, repeating the spell quickly and jumping in without warning this time.

She could swear he was trying harder, shoving more aggressively against her barriers, but they were much more solid than the previous attempt, now that she knew what the intrusion would feel like.

The tendril of magic searched the steel barricade for weaknesses or cracks. Finding none, it struck directly.

She gasped at the pain. This was what legilimency was used for, this is what made it dangerous. She reinforced the wall, but there was a dent and Malfoy wasn’t about to let up. He struck again and again until her head hurt so much that she was sure it was going to split open before he finally got in.

In her desperation to reinforce her outer shield, she had neglected her inner defense system, leaving a vulnerable pool of thoughts and memories readily available. He picked one at random.

_“Hermione, get down here!” Her mother shouted from the kitchen, “You’re going to be late for school!”_

_“Coming mum!” An eight-year-old Hermione, wild haired and knobby knee’d, came barreling down the stairs before skidding to a halt in the kitchen. Her father was seated at the counter on a stool, a cup of tea and the newspaper in front of him, while her mother scrambled eggs at the stove._

_“Morning daddy,” she said, pushing up on her toes and kissing him on the cheek. He chuckled in response to her antics, not taking his eyes off the paper. She crawled up on the stool next to him and grinned at her mother, revealing two giant gaps in the front of her mouth where her teeth were missing. “Can you drive me to school today?”_

_“What’s wrong with the bus, sweetheart?”_

_Her smile faltered a little. “Some of the other girls were being mean to me.”_

_“Which girls?”_

_“Just some of the girls in my class,” she muttered with a shrug, casting her eyes down to the Formica counter. “They said that I was weird because I liked to read so much, and my hair is frizzy, and that that’s why I don’t have any friends.”_

_Her mother quickly shared a look with her father, who grimaced, before nodding. “Sure love, I can drop you before I head to the practice.”_

The memory changed rapidly.

_“Ron seems to be enjoying the celebrations,” said Hermione to Harry, now seventeen years old and surrounded by a small flock of canaries that she had conjured. “Don’t pretend you didn’t see him. He wasn’t exactly hiding it, was — ?”_

_The door behind them burst open. Harry’s eyes went wide as Ron came in, laughing and pulling Lavender by the hand._

_“Oh,” he said, drawing up short at the sight of Harry and Hermione._

_“Oops!” said Lavender, and she backed out of the room, giggling._

_There was a horrible, swelling, billowing silence. Hermione was staring at Ron, who refused to look at her. She walked very slowly and erectly toward the door._

_Harry glanced at Ron, who seemed relieved that nothing worse had happened._

_“Oppugno!” Hermione shrieked from the doorway._

_The little flock of birds she had created were speeding like a hail of fat golden bullets toward Ron, pecking and clawing at every bit of flesh they could reach._

_“Gerremoffme!” he yelled, but with one last look of vindictive fury, Hermione wrenched open the door and disappeared through it._

Malfoy released her hands, sniggering openly with a look of vicious satisfaction on his face. “If I’d had known there were memories of you tormenting the Weasel, that would have been the first thing I looked for.”

Hermione dropped her head against her palms and pushed down the nausea that its pounding was causing her.

“I certainly hope it was worth it - you’ve given me the worst migraine in the history of the world.”

He shrugged, unperturbed. “What did he do that narked you off so much? And how can I get him to do it again?”

“It was… complicated.”

“You’re right, I forgot, we’re on a tight schedule. It’s just about time for… ah, yes, absolutely nothing.”

She raised her head and gave him a withering glare, but then she reminded herself of her plan from the other day. Olive branch.

“He and Lavender Brown had rather publicly entered into a relationship that evening.”

“And that bothered you?” he asked with a mocking twist of his lips, eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” she answered honestly, “at the time it seemed like we were… more than we actually were. Or at least that we could be.”

He appeared to ponder this for a moment, leaning back on his hands again.

“And now? You promised me that I wouldn’t find any memories of you snogging the red-headed git."

“That would be because there aren’t any such memories to find,” she explained. “We never got together. I wasn’t much interested after that, and considering what he pulled before this past Christmas, I can say with absolute certainty that we’ll never be more than friends. Even if I do somehow manage to get out of here alive, which seems unlikely.”

“You’re too good for him anyway,” Malfoy quipped without looking at her.

Hermione felt her jaw literally fall open a bit before she snapped it shut again.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that was a complement,” she shot at him.

“Hardly,” he scoffed. “A blast-ended skrewt is too good for the likes of Weaselbee.”

“You do flatter,” she snorted, shifting and settling on to her side, facing him.

“What happened at Christmas?” he asked, trying to seem aloof, though he was clearly interested.

“He just… sort of showed his colours,” she said, attempting not to say anything too disparaging or revealing of the circumstances. “He and I were helping Harry with something and Ron decided it was too hard and left.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No,” she responded, shaking her head. “Harry’s my best friend. He could ask me to walk through fire and I would trust that he had a good reason for it.”

“That’s idiotic.”

“That’s loyalty,” she shrugged. “Don’t you have any friends that you would stand by, no matter what? I saw you with Pansy Parkinson a lot at school, and Crabbe and Goyle.”

His face contorted at that before looking thoughtful for a moment.

“Blaise and Theo I suppose,” he said. “Theo and I have been friends since we were in nappies, and Blaise is a good bloke - if a bit of a dog.”

“Yeah, I’d actually heard that about him from some of the older Gryffindor girls. He isn’t particularly discerning in regard to house affiliations.”

Malfoy chuckled, “He’ll shag anything that moves is what you meant to say.”

They drifted into silence for a moment.

“Do you think we’ll see them again?” she asked.

“Honestly? No.”

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me just slap a disclaimer on here and say that I apologize for any inconsistencies between the canon depiction of occlumency/legilimency and the one here. And yes, the internal/external magic theory is of my own devising. 
> 
> Chapter four will be posted on 9/25. It's a bit on the short side, SO, I will be uploading both chapters five and six together on 10/2. 
> 
> Thank you to my wonderful Betas, TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade!


	4. Day 6, Boiling Point

> _I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain._
> 
> \- James Baldwin

“Merlin, Granger, are you even trying?”

Hermione sat back and pulled in a slow breath, trying to soothe the pounding behind her eyes.

“Has it occurred to you that maybe you’re just a shite teacher?”

Malfoy scoffed at the very idea of such a thing, and Hermione had to suppress the urge to reach over and smack him. They had been practicing for over an hour now and she just couldn’t focus enough to keep everything straight. She felt as if she were standing on one foot, in the middle of an ice rink, trying to balance 50 china plates on her head, and Malfoy wasn’t getting any nicer about it.

“Okay, let’s go again,” she said, trying once more to recenter herself.

“Sure – I’ll make it good,” he said, a vicious glint in his eye. She bit back a shudder. Every time she thought they had made some modicum of progress in toleration, they were at one another’s throats again.

After having had a near-civil conversation the day before, it was as if Malfoy were going out of his way to be an arse to her, and the most frustrating part was that she couldn’t tell which side of him was an act.

As a general rule he was snarky and quick to insult, but there were flashes, moments, where he could be begrudgingly kind, so much so that he seemed to surprise himself. That said, there were also moments when he could be vindictive and cruel for no other reason than for the sake of doing it. That facet of his personality was more difficult to reconcile.

He uttered the spell, she fought, and, once again, she lost.

_It was an early morning in July and the house was quiet. An adult Hermione had just finished shrinking and stuffing the few remaining possessions from her childhood bedroom into her beaded bag with shaking hands. She stopped and looked around the space, lips pressed into a tight line._

_Once full of books and drawings, untouched toys from her youth next to scrolls and magical texts, it now felt barren. Her floral bedspread had been replaced with a generic blue guestroom set; her wardrobe sat empty save for some old boxes of muggle books and her father’s suitcases from when he would travel for work. And all of her photographs had been removed from the windowsill and the wall over her desk._

_Her heart ached at the complete removal of herself from a space that had, at one point, been wholly hers. Hermione grabbed her bag and wand off the duvet and stepped into the hallway. Her parents were downstairs in the kitchen having their morning tea._

_As she walked past family photos, she dragged her wand along the wall beneath them and muttered under her breath, watching as she slowly dissolved from the frames, the other persons shifting around as needed to make the changes inconspicuous._

_She stopped in the hall outside her parents’ room before stepping inside and taking the small photo of herself off their dresser. She had spent the past couple weeks slowly removing herself from the less obvious places in their lives. School records, insurance forms, scrapbooks… she’d even gone into the attic and taken the Christmas ornaments with her name on them._

_“Hermione?” she heard her mother call from downstairs._

_“Coming, Mum,” she replied, desperately trying to stop her voice from shaking,_

The vision shifted. Malfoy was purposely looking for her painful memories, the things that hurt her. While she understood it was intended to motivate her, she couldn’t shake the sense of violation.

_Hermione sat on the Hogwarts Express all by herself. It was second year and she had saved a compartment, waiting for Harry and Ron to show up. She had just seen them not long ago in Diagon Alley and she was practically bouncing with excitement for the new school year._

_At least, she had been excited until she couldn’t find them. Fred Weasley walked past the door and she stood up. She couldn’t say exactly how, but she had always been able to tell him apart from George – something subtle about the way he carried himself._

_“Hey, Fred?”_

_“Hey! What’s up Hermione?” he responded, doubling back a few steps and flipping his ginger, mop-like hair out of his eyes with an easy grin._

_“Do you know where Harry and Ron are? I haven’t seen them.”_

_“I’m sure they’re around here somewhere – they were right behind me coming on to the platform.”_

_“Oh… yeah, okay, thanks,” she said with a weak smile, watching as he continued down the corridor._

_She sank back onto the long bench seat and tried to ignore the sting of abandonment. She considered walking the length of the train in an attempt to find them, but she couldn’t fight the anxiety of potentially discovering that they were there and that they had avoided her on purpose._

_One too many lonely birthday parties and empty lunch tables in her youth had left her circumspect._

_As the train rocked rhythmically back and forth, she pulled her knees up to her chest and stared out the window, trying to ignore how empty it felt._

Still trapped in her mind as Malfoy plundered onward, she felt herself breathing hard, trying not to sink into the emotions behind these memories. The ache that came with reliving them.

_It was fourth year, the afternoon that Moody - who wasn’t really Moody - had transfigured Malfoy into a ferret._

_While he had been excused for the rest of the day, she had continued on to potions class._

_Afterward, Professor Snape asked her to drop a small box full of vials of freshly brewed pain relief and blood replenishing potions by the infirmary._

_“Oh, thank you dear,” Madam Pomfrey said when she walked in, taking the box in one hand and giving Hermione a pat on the cheek with the other._

_She glanced around the apparently empty ward before she saw, in the farthest corner of the room, a figure curled on its side on top of the blankets, white-blonde hair fanned across the pillow._

_“Is he…” she started to ask the Hogwarts matron, gesturing vaguely in Malfoy’s direction before biting her cheek._

_“He’ll be just fine,” Madam Pomfrey assured her, glancing up as she organized the potions on the shelf outside her office._

_“A teacher using transfiguration on a student though,” she huffed, clucking her tongue in anger. “The poor boy had half a dozen broken ribs and a concussion when he came in here.”_

_Hermione thought about how she had stood by, laughing as ferret-Malfoy, completely helpless, had been thrown across the cobblestone pavers in the courtyard. Before Madam Pomfrey could say anything else, Hermione’s stomach twisted violently, and she ran from the room._

She tried to pull her hands away, attempting to sever the connection, but Malfoy’s hold on her was like a vice. With a jolt of horror, she realized that he was going to keep pulling that thread. Seconds later a new image appeared in her mind from later the same day.

_It was after dinner, nearing curfew, and Hermione was pacing in the corridor outside the hospital wing. Every so often she would slow in front of the entrance before turning on her heel to make another circuit._

_Finally, she stopped, seemed to steady herself, and extended her hand, pushing the door open slowly. She poked her head in and saw that the ward had remained empty save for Malfoy, who was still curled on the bed in the far corner. This time he was under the covers and wearing the standard blue pyjamas issued to all students forced to spend the night under observation._

_She tentatively stepped in and pulled the door shut behind her as quietly as possible. Looking around she saw Madam Pomfrey’s light on in her office, but the door was only open a crack. She crossed the room slowly and stopped near the foot of the only occupied bed._

_Malfoy was fast asleep, most likely having been given a draught, but she kept her distance anyway. The dimly lit lamp on his bedside table cast a shadow on his face, but she noticed that his platinum hair was sticking up a little in the back where it had been flattened against the pillow._

_She moved to step closer but stopped herself, swaying a bit in place. And then she just stood there for a minute, looking at him with her lips twisted a little and a crinkle between her brows. In the distance the clock began to chime._

_She quickly stepped to the side and reached into the bag hanging off her shoulder before depositing a single sugar quill next to the base of the lamp near his wand. As the clock struck ten, she turned on her heel and swiftly strode from the room._

“Enough,” she shouted, ripping herself away from his grip and breaking their eye contact, trying to regain her bearings. Her head was throbbing as she pressed the heels of her hands into her temples and drew in shallow breaths.

She didn’t dare look up, instead squeezing her eyes shut.

“What, having a crisis of conscience, Granger?” Malfoy mocked, his arrogant voice ringing through the cell. She didn’t respond. “Did one of the precious golden trio finally realize that they aren’t the only ones capable of feeling pain?”

“Shut up, Malfoy!” she shouted, getting to her feet and stomping across the room, still refusing to look at him.

He didn’t though; he scented blood in the water and, predator that he was, he couldn’t help but swim toward it. “Come on, tell me how much you hate me. Tell me how much I deserve everything that’s happened to me.” His voice was dripping with anger now, the acid of it shocking and scorching her.

“I don’t hate you!” she screamed at him, finally spinning around to face him.

“Well I hate you!” he roared, letting his mask slip at last. She saw his hands at his sides quite literally shaking with fury. “I hate everything you fucking are. Just because I haven’t killed you yet, locked in this sodding cell, doesn’t mean a Merlin-be-damned thing Granger. What, did you think all this time I’d been harboring sad, lonely, unrequited feelings? Are you looking for a bullshite confession about how tragically misunderstood I am? I’m not some pathetic, broken house elf in need of rescuing. I hated you because of all the things they told me you were, and then I hated you because you weren’t actually any of those things.”

Hermione could feel unshed tears welling in her eyes, stinging her, but she jerked her chin up and adamantly refused to let them fall. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“They told me you would be stupid, that your magic would be weak, and then I spent six years having my arse handed to me at every bloody turn. They said that your blood was muddy, dirty, but second year when you were chopping flobberworms your hand slipped, and you cut yourself and imagine my surprise when your blood was just as red as mine. I hate you because you made me question _everything_!”

He hit the wall next to him with the side of his fist and spun away from her. His voice rang through their stone cage.

“You ruined it, Malfoy,” she shot back at him, finally having had enough. They had spent the better part of a week at this point dancing around one another in their tiny, God-forsaken prison, and years of tension had bubbled to an inevitable head. “You ruined literal fucking magic for me! I spent my _whole life_ before Hogwarts a lonely, bookish freak, thinking there was something wrong with me. And then I got my letter and I was _so_ excited because this was it. I was finally going to belong somewhere, but then not only do I discover that even by magical standards I’m still a bookish freak, but I’m also inferior because of my birth. Because of something completely outside of my control. You and your great pack of elitist gits tried your damndest to suck the joy right out of the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me, for no better reason than your parents telling you that I deserved it. You’re right Malfoy, you aren’t some tragically misunderstood anti-hero, you’re a _fucking villain_.”

She spit the last couple words at him, drenched with all the pain, all the hurt he had caused. The vision of her younger self sitting alone in the dormitory, sobbing, trying to understand a slur she had never heard before, replayed behind her eyes.

They were both breathing heavily now, silent and glaring at one another across the confines of the room.

After a few tense moments she broke away and walked to her corner, sinking to the ground and facing the stone wall.

She thought again about how everything here in the cell was grey.

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? Something had to give, they couldn’t tiptoe around all the history and all the hurt indefinitely. I know that I'm twisting canon a little but Hermione was always more compassionate than the boys, so I’m standing by it. 
> 
> The next two chapters, five and six, will be posted on 10/2. 
> 
> Infinite gratitude to my wonderful Betas, TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade!


	5. Day 8, A festering wound

> _I'm out on the edge and I'm screaming my name_
> 
> _Like a fool at the top of my lungs_
> 
> _Sometimes when I close my eyes_
> 
> _I pretend I'm alright_
> 
> _But it's never enough_
> 
> _'Cause my echo, echo_
> 
> _Is the only voice coming back_
> 
> _\- Echo, Jason Walker_

Two days had passed since their argument – or perhaps mutual dressing down was a better way to describe the encounter. The air, thick with emotions at the time, had grown cold and still, even moreso than it had been before.

Hermione didn’t bring up learning occlumency again. While she recognized it was still a useful skill to have, particularly while you were held captive in the enemy camp, it turned out that the devil she knew could be pretty terrible in his own right.

The elf came and went, once with the basin and flannel, and she had cleaned herself in silence, not bothering to bait or tease Malfoy this time.

She took note that her arm, rather than healing, had started to hurt more, burning every time she bumped it. She tried not to think about what this might mean. If it was infected, or if the blade had been cursed… she didn’t want to consider dying in this room with only Draco Malfoy for company. It was too devastating to comprehend.

The elf had left some time ago after dropping off two bowls of thick, pasty porridge, and she was curled on her side against one of the walls. She felt herself sweating a bit despite the perpetual chill in the air and decided she couldn’t put it off any longer.

She got up and moved across the room to the door on shaking legs, pulling in a deep breath before raising her arm to inspect it more closely in the pale, flickering light. She felt Malfoy’s eyes on her, but he didn’t say anything.

While the wound itself had closed in all but the deepest places, the edges of the lacerations were clearly red and puffy, the skin around them hot to the touch.

“Malfoy,” she said weakly, her voice shaking. He looked up, surprise flashing briefly across his face before he schooled it away. “It looks like you might get this cell to yourself after all.”

“What are you rambling about, Granger?”

She swallowed hard but remained silent, unable to tear her eyes from her own festering flesh. While it didn’t seem to have progressed very far, there was little doubt in her mind that it was infected, and badly. After a moment he got to his feet, muttering under his breath, and joined her, standing near the door.

She held out her shaking arm and he grasped her wrist, twisting it slightly toward the light.

“Well fuck.”

oOoOoOo

“Okay, I’m going to do it again.”

She nodded weakly, unable to speak around the fabric in her mouth. It had a slightly sour taste and the fibers clung to her tongue in a decidedly unpleasant way.

Malfoy, who was kneeling next to her prone form, placed his hand just above her forearm and muttered, “Scourgify.”

Her hands balled into fists as she screamed around the gag. Regardless of how powerfully it was cast, scourgify, a general cleaning charm, was decidedly _not_ intended to sterilise a wound. It burned, like someone was raking a red-hot poker under her skin. Malfoy had his other hand on her shoulder, pinning her firmly to the ground so she couldn’t thrash away from the spell.

After an extremely long moment he released it and she relaxed, breathing heavily, unable to see past her eyes watering.

In the muggle world, assuming this was an infection like she suspected and not an intended effect from the blade itself, she would likely be hospitalized, treated with a round of IV antibiotics, and sent on her way.

In the magical world there were potions created to clean and remove contamination from tissue and blood – it would take minutes to remedy.

Here, in the cell, there were none of those things. Neither Malfoy nor herself could think of any spell or charm that had that sort of effect, let alone one that they could cast wandlessly, so they had been alternating between scourgify and tergio, both of which were commonly used for housework. 

“Not that I don’t get off on tormenting you, but is this doing anything besides making you bleed everywhere?” Malfoy snapped at her, his voice tight.

He had a point there. The first cast had removed her scabs and reopened the injury, and there was a small pool of blood mixed with the slightest amount of yellowish pus developing beneath her arm, and the palm of his hand was coated from her movement while under the spell. She reached a shaking hand up and removed the gag.

“I think so,” she said, drawing in a gasping breath and leaning to one side to inspect the wound. “The edges don’t look as pink, and the skin around it isn’t as warm as it was when we started.”

He raised his eyebrows and gave her a doubtful look before shaking his head. “Again?”

She took a deep breath and nodded, “One more time.”

She replaced the gag, which was actually just the empty sleeve of her jumper, and braced herself.

“Scourgify.”

As her jaw clenched and her body shuddered involuntarily, it occurred to her that, for the first time since she had woken up in this room, she was grateful it was Malfoy in here with her. She didn’t think Harry or Ron would have the stomach for this.

Bastard though he was, Malfoy wasn’t squeamish.

Releasing the spell, he sat back on his feet and ran the hand that wasn’t bloody through his hair, shrewd grey eyes focused on her arm.

“Granger, I don’t think –“ he started slowly.

“I know,” she muttered, pushing herself up and resting her head in her hands.

I don’t think this is going to make a difference.

I don’t think we’re going to be able to clean it completely.

I don’t think you’re ever going to leave this cell.

She knew.

“We’ll try it again tomorrow,” she said, resolutely. 

He paused for a moment before nodding.

She made her way to the corner and grabbed a handful of the papery squares from their makeshift loo, which they had determined were replenishing themselves and were reminiscent of cheap, single-ply toilet paper. She mopped the blood up that had dripped down the edges of her forearm and off her elbow, careful not to get it in the lacerations themselves. Tossing them in the pail where they disappeared, she grabbed another handful and removed most of the blood from the ground where she had been laying.

“So...” he began, once she had settled back on the floor across from him, “want to practice occlumency again?”

She laughed, surprising herself, and watched as the corners of his mouth pulled up slightly into a wry smirk. It was the first genuine smile from either of them since arriving.

“I think I’ve been tortured enough, thanking you kindly.”

He dipped his head in solemn agreement and let it fall back against the wall, closing his eyes. She sat quietly for a moment, considering the infuriatingly complex man across from her.

“Malfoy?”

“Hmm?” he responded, raising his eyebrows but keeping his lids shut.

“I don’t think you’re a villain,” she said softly. He stilled entirely, as if he had stopped breathing. 

It was silent for a second, her words hanging heavy in the air between them.

“Get some sleep, Granger,” he replied, his voice a little gruffer than before.

She moved back toward the wall and curled onto the musty blanket, extending her arm so it wasn’t touching anything. She shut her eyes and willed herself into oblivion.

oOoOoOo

“Where were you when the snatchers caught you?”

The elf had just left and she was scratching a tenth line on the wall, diagonally across the previous four while Malfoy started eating. She considered the question for a moment, seeing no harm in revealing it now. It’s not like Harry and Ron would have gone back there and, even if they had, who was Malfoy going to tell? The house elf?

“The Forest of Dean actually, not far from Gloucester.”

His brow furrowed slightly. “What on earth were you doing wandering around in the woods?”

This query was slightly more perilous.

“Working on something for the Order,” she answered vaguely, twisting her expression into one of indifference. “And we were camping actually.”

“The Order of the Phoenix had you taking a camping holiday in Wales?” he asked, voice dripping with skepticism. 

“Something like that. We had been on the run since we broke out of the Ministry – I’m sure you heard about that debacle?” he nodded, “Well then you know that you’re looking at Undesirable No. 2 who was, at the time, travelling with Undesirable No. 1. It’s not like we could go and rent a room at the Leaky.”

“Why would you say the name though? You had to know there was a taboo by then.”

“That,” she said, shoving down the rekindled flare of frustration about their capture and picking up her bowl from the tray, “was not me.”

“It was Potter, wasn’t it?”

She just shot him a reproachful look. While she was still annoyed with Harry’s inability to properly censor his words, it occurred to her that he was probably blaming himself over their capture and her fate. Whether he knew that was most likely going to end up being a death sentence didn’t matter. After almost two weeks with no contact, The Order had likely already written her off. She had seen it happen more than once in the past couple years.

“It was an accident. Dumbledore taught him to say it ever since he entered the magical world, that ‘fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.’ He was frustrated and slipped up out of habit.”

“Maybe some names inspire fear for a reason.”

They ate quietly for a moment.

“What’s Hogwarts like? With Snape as Headmaster?” she asked.

Malfoy grimaced and set down his food.

“It’s not… Hogwarts anymore, not like how you knew it. It’s something else.”

Though she had expected it, the idea still chilled her. Since she was twelve years old, the castle had been more her home than anywhere else in the world. Despite her annoying roommates and the school’s unusually high rate of tragic, life-threatening events, the place itself had always been one of warmth and welcome; pure, unadulterated magic. Her heart broke at the prospect of it being twisted into something dark.

“Tell me? Please? Neville and Ginny and Luna are all still there…”

“Actually,” he began slowly, “Longbottom disappeared sometime before the spring holidays. Nobody knows where he went.”

“You mean he left the castle?"

Malfoy shrugged, “Probably. Like I said, there wasn’t much worth staying for anymore. All of the muggle-born students were gone, and a good number of the halfbloods too, and the Carrows were taking the power of their position out on anyone whose parents weren’t Death Eaters.”

“The Carrows… Do you mean Alecto and Amycus? But aren’t _they_ Death Eaters?”

“Yes, they most certainly are,” he huffed as he stood up and strode across the room, clearly on-edge about having this conversation.

“Malfoy…”

He seemed to be deliberating something, and she could see his right hand curling and uncurling at his side. It was something she did herself when she wished she had her wand, less for defense purposes and more for the comfort and familiarity of simply holding it.

“They had the older students practicing the cruciatus curse on the first and second years in detention,” he spat out in a flurry of words, a scowl twisting his features.

She felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over her head.

“Snape did that? He made students do that?” disbelief coloured her tone.

“No, but he certainly didn’t stop the Carrows from making students do it.”

“Did you…?”

He turned to look at her and his stark-white complexion was answer enough.

“If you didn’t do it you got it back twice as bad, and so did whoever you were supposed to practice on. Some of us taught the younger years how to fake it, but…”

“But that didn’t always work,” she finished.

He nodded gravely. She lost herself in her thoughts, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her uninjured arm across them. For a brief moment she was on the floor with Bellatrix again.

“Is that where you learned the thing with your hands?”

“No,” he replied, “that was actually from my mother.”

“Your mother taught you?” she asked, taken aback.

He shook his head. “I figured it out treating her,” he said.

“Who was torturing your mum?” she blurted before she could stop herself, shocked. He quit pacing and dropped to the ground next to her, noticeably closer than he usually sat. She could feel the warmth radiating off his body and she, having been perpetually chilled as of late, wanted nothing more than to lean into it. She stopped herself though.

“Who wasn’t?” he chuckled darkly. “My aunt, the Dark Lord, random Death Eaters… whoever felt like it I suppose.”

“Why though? Isn’t she one of them?”

“One of us you mean?” he brandished his bare forearm with a grim expression. She had grown so accustomed to seeing the mark it barely registered anymore. “No. My mother has never been, and will never be, a Death Eater.”

“I don’t understand,” she admitted, slowly.

He feigned shock, “Merlin, stop the presses. Granger is confused about something.”

“Prat,” she said, rolling her eyes and bumping him with her shoulder. There wasn’t any real venom behind the word though, she said it to him in the same way she would have said it to Ron or one of the twins. The corner of his mouth twitched up for a split second before dropping away.

“It was a punishment mostly. Sometimes for something my father had done, others for something I had done… or failed to do,” he said, knowing she would understand what he was talking about. “When I got home after fifth year, she was barely alive, he had her in a cage in the middle of the drawing room. That’s why I took the mark. Once I agreed to do it, he let her out.”

Her mind drifted back to what he had told her days ago when she had first asked about his tattoo. _It wasn’t something that I could walk away from._

Hermione thought of her own parents, far away in Australia. Thought about how she would feel seeing her own mother threatened, tortured and degraded for amusement. The lengths she herself had gone to in order to prevent such an occurrence.

She could see the tension in his shoulders and, emboldened by their growing rapport, she slid her hand over the small gap between them and closed it around his.

He stiffened briefly before relaxing against the wall, squeezing her fingers lightly in return.

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since last week's chapter was pretty short, as promised chapter six went up today as well. Make sure you check it out!
> 
> Many thanks to my Betas, TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade!


	6. Day 12, Gaps in history

> _I saw you fell asleep_
> 
> _While you were reading_
> 
> _The pages on your face_
> 
> _You had been weeping_
> 
> _And I saw_
> 
> _What it was_
> 
> _That I had done_
> 
> _\- I Was Wrong, Sleeperstar_

“Tell me about your parents,” Malfoy said one day. He was sitting with his back against the wall and his legs sprawled in front of him, tossing bits of rock against the cell door where they made a little ‘ping’ sound before dropping to the ground.

She was positioned to his left, laying with her back on the blanket he usually slept on, with her legs propped against the stone wall. She looked at him incredulously.

“You want to know about my parents? My _muggle_ parents?”

He shrugged and threw another shard of stone.

“Alright,” she continued after a beat. “Their names are Daniel and Emma Granger, they live in Hampstead and they’re dentists.”

“What’s a dentist?”

“The muggle version of a healer,” she said in a rehearsed response. “But they only fix people’s teeth.”

“You’re taking the mickey,” he fired back, glancing at her with narrowed eyes.

“No,” she laughed. “They make a decent living doing it too. There’s a lot of education required to be a dentist.”

“What did they think of you going to Hogwarts?”

It was her turn to shrug.

“I think it probably explained a lot,” she said. “Like all magical children, I had several outbursts when I was little. One time in a tantrum, when I was five or so, I turned my mother’s hair green because she was trying to get me to eat peas.”

“The first time I experienced accidental magic I was three,” Malfoy said thoughtfully. “Or at least that’s what they told me. My mother had taken away this toy dragon that flew a few centimetres above the ground; I was rather attached to the thing, and I kept summoning it back and telling her the house elf gave it to me.”

“That’s rotten” she exclaimed, laughing. He smiled, a warm smile that touched his eyes, and something in her chest tightened a little.

“Trust me, I was an extremely irritating child.”

“Well you don’t need to tell me that, I knew you as a child. ‘My father will hear about this,’” she crowed in a poor imitation of him.

At that he all out laughed. “At least I wasn’t going around hitting people!”

“You deserved that, and you know it.”

He shook his head but made no effort to defend himself.

“That was actually not even close to the strangest thing I did that year…”

“That I believe – you and Potter were always getting into trouble.”

“You truly can’t imagine the half of it,” she mused, reflecting upon some of their adventures. “I suppose when your friendship stems from a near death experience with a mountain troll you can’t really expect much else. But again, that ended up being a bit of a non-event all things considered.”

“Nearly being squashed by a mountain troll wasn’t an experience of note?” he asked, skeptical.

“Mmm, a couple weeks after that we were almost eaten by a Cerberus in the third-floor corridor. That year we also smuggled a dragon out of Hogwarts via broom, almost got strangled by Devil’s Snare, and played a giant game of wizard’s chess, in which we were pieces – and yes, it was exactly like real wizard’s chess. Oh! And I also lit Professor Snape on fire. Briefly.”

She looked up to find him staring at her with a dazed expression, blinking wordlessly. There was a moment of silence.

“So… second year?” he asked, finally, at which she laughed.

“That one involved you and your father actually, more than you’re probably aware. It started off with your house-elf harassing Harry at his aunt and uncle’s house over the summer.”

“Which house elf?”

“Dobby.”

“What on earth was Dobby doing with Potter?”

“He knew your dad was planning something sinister for the school year involving You-Know-Who and he made several _deeply_ misguided attempts to try and protect Harry.”

“Okay, back up, what does my father have to do with this?”

“You mean you don’t know anything about what happened that year? The diary?”

“I mean, I know about the Chamber of Secrets…”

“But you don’t know how it was opened?”

He shook his head, clearly wracking his brain for what she might be referring to.

“Do you remember we ran into you at Flourish and Blott’s before school started?” he nodded. “Well, your father took the opportunity to slip an old diary into Ginny’s things.”

“Why on earth would he do something like that?”

“Well, it wasn’t a normal diary you see, it had once belonged to Tom Riddle.”

“And just who is Tom Riddle?”

“The person that gave you that,” she said as she reached over and tapped the dark mark on his forearm.

He reeled for a moment.

“Riddle… I don’t recognize the name.”

“You wouldn’t, he got it from his father; his _muggle_ father.”

She must have finally shaken him beyond composure because his jaw actually dropped open for a second. She should have known that would be the thing to push him over the edge.

“You mean to tell me…”

“Yep,” she said smugly. It wasn’t a laughing matter, but still… it was a little funny. “Your dark lord is a half-blood.”

oOoOoOo

It was later that day and they had swapped positions, Malfoy now laying on his back with his legs propped and Hermione sitting against the wall next to him with her legs crossed while she played with a thread at the hem of her jumper.

He had gone into what appeared to be a state of minor shock after her reveal regarding Tom Riddle’s blood status, so they had taken a break.

She had just gotten through her brewing Polyjuice potion when the elf popped in with dinner.

“I can’t believe you three spied on me,” he said, sounding a little offended.

She snorted, “That was hardly the first, or the last time, we did that.”

“Still, I feel violated.”

“You were the one running around telling all the muggle-borns that they were going to keel over!”

“I mostly reserved that for you,” he defended. “And brewing polyjuice potion in second year… I knew you were a swot, but that really tops it.”

“So, after we determined it _wasn’t_ you, Harry discovered a diary that someone had tried to get rid of in Myrtle’s bathroom… wait, maybe the acromantulas were next… no, no, it was definitely the diary first because I was petrified by the time they ran into the spiders.”

Malfoy looked up at her, her lips pursed and brow furrowed in concentration, with a bemused expression.

“Anyway,” she continued, choosing her words carefully, “the diary contained a memory of Tom Riddle from when he was a student. He showed Harry a few things that had happened when he was in school, the last time The Chamber opened – that part isn’t really important though, unless you want to hear Hagrid’s bit of the story.”

“Pass on that,” he said quickly.

“I assumed as much… did I mention that Harry had been hearing voices all year?”

“No, but that fits right in with everything that you _have_ mentioned.”

“I’m just going to skip ahead – the details get a little muddled from here anyway because I got them secondhand. I figured out what the monster in the chamber was, but I got petrified before I could tell anyone. Harry and Ron went into the forest – more about Hagrid there, but long story short they thought the monster might be an acromantula. It wasn’t. Ginny gets taken into The Chamber, the school is going to close, and Lockhart was a phony who was stealing other wizard’s memories and obliviating them to sell books. Harry opened the chamber, which was also located in Myrtle’s bathroom, he killed the monster, a basilisk that had been navigating the school via plumbing, he got healed by Fawkes after it bit him, and he destroyed the diary.”

“… is that all?”

“No – he also set Dobby free by tricking your father into giving him a sock.”

The room was dead silent for a moment.

“So… third year?”

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a bit of fluff! I am obscenely busy this week and don’t have much to offer in the way of author’s notes, but I certainly hope you enjoyed the new chapters. Number seven will be posted on 10/9.
> 
> Thank you so much to my Betas, TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade!


	7. Day 14, Tumbling down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy your lemons.

> _I think I might've inhaled you_
> 
> _I could feel you behind my eyes_
> 
> _You’d gotten into my bloodstream_
> 
> _I could feel you floating in me_
> 
> _Words can be like knives_
> 
> _They can cut you open_
> 
> _And the silence surrounds you_
> 
> _And hunts you_
> 
> _\- Stateless, Bloodstream_

It was getting worse. She was laid on the ground in the same position she had been in every day for the past six days, Malfoy kneeling near her head with his left palm pressing firmly on her shoulder and his right hand hovering over her right arm.

“Again,” she growled, muffled by the gag. He cast without pause, face carefully blank, and her legs spasmed for two excruciating minutes before he let up. 

She ripped the fabric from her mouth and gasped, noting in some distant part of her mind that he hadn’t moved his hand from her shoulder. She raised her arm and examined it, trying to choke back a cry of frustration. It hadn’t changed at all from an hour ago when they started.

At first the cleaning charms, unbearable as they were, had helped, reducing the swelling and whisking away some of the redness and discharge. She even felt slightly better after them. But now her arm was mottled with angry red splotches, extending away from the rancid gashes and engulfing her from wrist to elbow.

They had briefly considered the idea of amputation, but even if they could get through her arm with dulled severing charms, she would unquestionably bleed to death without blood replenishing potions and proper cauterization spells.

She couldn’t hold it in anymore, not caring what Malfoy thought of her. It wasn’t as though it mattered now. His hand slipped off her shoulder as she got to her feet, tears pouring down her cheeks, choking as she tried to gasp around the sobs wracking her body, nearly doubling her over. She swiped her left arm across her face and violently shook her head.

No. This was absurd. She wasn’t going to die like this. She was supposed to die in battle, fighting for the light, protecting Harry. Not fade into nihility, forgotten in her own filth and surrounded by nothing but endless grey.

She whipped around and strode toward the door, ignoring how her head spun from pain and blood loss.

“Let me out of here!” she shouted, pounding her fists against the cold iron and spattering blood across the floor. “Let me out you bloody, buggering _bastards_!”

She struck the metal over and over again, screaming and swearing until she was hoarse and her whole body ached. Malfoy knelt unmoving on the ground where she had left him, next to a pool of her blood, silent as the grave.

Her blood. It all came back to her filthy, muddy blood. The irony wasn’t lost on her. All these years clawing her way to the top, proving that she was better than they thought she was, and she was going to die of sepsis. Hermione Granger was going to perish from a literal fucking blood infection. She distantly heard a hysterical laugh bubble from between her lips.

She eventually collapsed in a heap against the base of the door, curling in on herself and crying so hard she couldn’t breathe or see. She barely registered when two strong, steady arms wrapped under her shoulders and legs, scooping her up easily and depositing her on the makeshift bed in the corner.

He made to pull away, but her shaking hands curled desperately into the fabric of his shirt and he paused.

“Please,” she begged, emotionally shattered and utterly deprived of human contact, “please.”

A beat passed before he sank down next to her, one arm wrapped firmly around her shoulders, the other resting lightly across her hip. She let her head fall forward onto his chest and wept until there were no tears left to cry.

oOoOoOo

Hermione awoke sometime later to a pop. Her head was pounding and her whole body was sore, battered and dehydrated. She knew the skin around her eyes was probably puffed and red. Those weren’t the first things she noticed though. The first thing she noticed was that she was warm. For the first time in weeks, she was thoroughly, truly warm.

She peered up and saw Malfoy’s face inches from her own, relaxed and slack as he slept.

His jaw had a shadow of blonde hair across it. Not thick, but noticeable up close. It was slightly darker than the hair on his head. His lips, when not pursed or twisted as they often were, were a soft pink, thin with a defined cupid’s bow and a small dimple on either side. She tried to remember if she had ever seen Malfoy smile to the point of showing dimples and she didn’t think she had.

His nose was sharp looking, that was undeniable, but it wasn’t harsh. It fit the rest of his features and spoke to what she knew was French heritage. And his hair… once white-blonde, easily his most defining characteristic, had grown dingy and dirty during their weeks in the cell.

She brought her aching arm up and lightly threaded her fingers through it, starting at the temple and coming to rest at the base of his neck. It was softer than she thought it would be. He stirred slightly, eyes roaming behind closed lids.

She figured that now was as good a time as any to be honest with herself. At some point between their shouting match and her emotional breakdown she had come to care for Malfoy, though in what sense she couldn’t be sure. She joked with him, teased him like she would Harry or Ron, but there was something else to it. Something darker and more challenging. Heated.

There, lying in the pale grey light that was their world, totally engulfed by him, she could admit that much. And she could admit how wretchedly selfish it was to care about him now.

He stirred again and shifted a bit, one arm pulling her in closer so that she was angled tight against his chest. That was when she felt his erection press into the side of her abdomen. Her stomach fluttered and she had to suppress a little gasp.

While not lacking in firsthand experience with male anatomy, it had been a terribly long time since she had possessed the mental capacity to even consider such a thing. She had only been in such a position with two other men, Viktor Krum and, surprisingly enough, Fred Weasley. Perhaps by proxy George too, but she dared not dwell on that thought.

Heart pounding in her throat, she considered what it would be like to reach her hand down and wrap it around him. She wondered how he would respond. Would he pull away? Would he consent to her touch? Would he like it?

The thoughts and questions swirled in her head and she didn’t notice when his eyes fluttered open and came to rest on her face. She took a deep breath and revelled in the way their chests rose and fell together.

“Enjoying yourself?” she heard a mocking, sleep-addled voice, shaking her from her musing.

“You wish,” she replied acerbically, one corner of her mouth pulling up. For a brief moment neither of them moved, each openly taking in the other and disregarding how their bodies were entangled. In short order though, he slipped his arm from underneath her and shifted to stand. The ache that she felt at the loss surprised her a bit.

Malfoy made his way to the tray and basin that had been deposited near the door and dropped to the ground, picking up a piece of toast. She sat up and groaned a little, her body resentful of the treatment it had received the day prior.

Moving over to join him, she nibbled at a piece of the dry bread and sipped her water, swirling it around her mouth and desperately wishing, not for the first time, that she had a proper toothbrush, before turning to the basin. Her arm throbbed but, thankfully, it appeared the disease no longer sat near the surface of her skin, instead extending outward under her flesh. It didn’t make a difference besides being moderately less unsightly.

She turned, angling away from Malfoy and stripped off her jumper, discarding it next to her. He was silent, but she could feel his eyes on her back. She contemplated trying to drag the thing around the curtain in the corner, but there was barely room to turn around behind it and her own imminent demise pushed her past caring about modesty. 

She paused for a moment before reaching up behind her back with her left hand and unclasping her bra, letting it fall forward on her shoulders.

The wretched thing hadn’t been removed since she had been back in the tent and she almost groaned at the relief she felt, noting the puckered, irritated skin under her breasts and along the side of her ribs where it had chafed.

She stretched down and grabbed the cloth, dunking and wringing it out before bringing it up to meet her skin. Malfoy had threatened to drown her the last time she had disrobed, perhaps that would be the easiest way to go now, she thought darkly. She didn’t hear the small, strangled sound he made in his throat as she ran the flannel under her breasts, hissing at the friction.

After cleaning the front of her body she made to bend her arm and wash her back, but her diseased limb disobeyed and spasmed, making her drop the cloth. She reached down to grab it and froze when her fingers weren’t the only ones clutching the discarded rag.

She felt as though her heart were going to beat out of her chest as she turned her head and peered over her shoulder, warm brown colliding with icy grey. His pupils were dilated, and his cheeks had the barest hint of a flush to them. Perhaps her musings earlier hadn’t been one-sided after all.

He cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows, inclining his head in the direction of her back but not breaking their eye contact. She drew in a shaky breath and then nodded at him, a small, almost indistinguishable jut of her chin. 

She reached up, trying to ignore how her hands quivered, and pulled her hair forward over her shoulder, twisting it out of the way. He placed the flannel against the middle of her back, above her spine, and dragged it across her flesh.

The air in the cell had shifted, no longer tight and angry, nor riddled with grief as it had been the night before. Now it was filled with a different kind of tension, wrapping taught around them and making her skin hum.

Malfoy continued his ministrations until her entire back had been wiped down, several beads of water cascading and disappearing into the waistband of her trousers. He pulled the cloth away but didn’t move, so close that she could feel the warmth radiating off of him.

There was a question hanging between them and, before she could stop to think about it, to rationalise it away, she pivoted on her knees and pulled him in, crushing her lips against his and fisting a hand in his hair.

His body stiffened and his lips parted slightly in a gasp. For one horrifying moment she thought she had misread, ruined the progress they had made with her impulsivity. Just as she began to retreat and draw away, she felt a hand press into her bare, damp lower back, fingers spanning between her hips and ribs and holding her in place. He leaned into her and returned the kiss, and a dam broke. He tasted of desperation, raw and unfettered.

For the second time since she had woken, she was pulled against him, but this time there was only a thin layer of fabric separating them, her nipples hard and pebbled as they brushed against his shirt. She wondered if he could feel her heart beating, pounding like a battering ram trying to escape her chest as it heaved with ragged, frantic breaths.

She opened her mouth a little and he took advantage, sliding his tongue inside where it met with her own. His other hand moved up the side of her abdomen, ghosting across her ribs until it came to rest just below her right breast, his thumb stretching and stroking the sensitive underside.

She lifted her tattered arm up, careful not to bump it, and reached between them, unfastening the buttons on his shirt one by one until it hung open. Her diseased limb ached and burned, but she didn’t care. In a twisted way she relished the pain; let it burn, let the flames consume them both. Nothing fucking mattered anyway. She tore her mouth away and drew back, wanting to see him, wanting to memorize every plane and angle.

Her hand glided across his body, fingers lightly tracing the three gash-like white ropes that marred his porcelain flesh. His eyes dropped to her torso, the hand that was on her back shifting around to track across her own scar, a raised purple line that started at the top of her right breast and sliced downward to her left hip. Their eyes met in silent understanding.

Without breaking the contact, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against the topmost scar where it wrapped under his left nipple, her tongue flicking out against the puckered flesh, tasting him. There was no soap or cologne hanging on his skin, there was only Malfoy, musky and primal. She imagined in any other situation that may have had a different effect, but here it stoked embers deep within her.

His eyes darkened and he licked his lips, shuddering slightly at the contact. She drew her mouth back up to connect with his and her hands slipped his shirt off his shoulders. Any chance they had of stopping evaporated when her chest pressed against him again. The feeling of his skin against hers was so utterly delicious, so _wanted_ , she couldn’t suppress the groan that escaped against his mouth.

He pulled her to her feet and guided her backward until her burning flesh hit the cool, grey wall of their cell, eliciting a gasp. He dragged his lips away and trailed them across her jaw and down her neck, one hand braced against the stone behind her and the other lightly palming her breast, his thumb flicking back and forth against her sensitive nipple.

She gave in to her earlier impulse and brought her hand down to rest upon his hard length, where it strained against the fabric of his trousers. He moaned softly into her neck and dropped his forehead against her shoulder, breathing heavily and shuddering at the contact.

She pushed him away from the wall and toward the blanket in the corner, where they had awoken not an hour prior, and motioned for him to lay back. As he did, she dropped in front of him and crawled between his knees, reaching her hands down to unfasten the button of his slacks. She glanced up and met his eyes again, quirking her brows in question. A second passed where everything stood still before he nodded.

She unzipped him in a quick, fluid motion and guided his trousers and pants down his hips and past his feet, tossing them to the side. His erection twitched where it rested against his lower stomach and she wrapped one hand around him, the other, her ‘good arm’ as she had come to think of it, supporting her weight as she glided her fist along his rather sizeable shaft. His head tipped up toward the ceiling and his eyes pressed shut, lips parting slightly in a silent cry of pleasure. She took advantage and quickly dropped her mouth over him.

“Granger,” he gasped in surprise, eyes flying open and hips bucking upward as his hands fisted in the blankets on either side of his body. She flicked her tongue along the velvety underside of his cock while her hand continued stroking and squeezing in concert with her lips.

“For the love… of… Merlin,” he bit out between clenched teeth, chest rising and falling rapidly. She chuckled, her throat vibrating around him.

All of a sudden, a hand wrapped in her mass of curly hair and she was pulled sharply upward, his arousal dropping from her mouth with a light popping sound. His lips crashed into hers once more and he rolled so that she was under him.

She felt the button on her trousers pop open, laughing internally at how opposed he had been to that prospect when they first arrived here, before he drew back, moved her legs to one side, and slid them down past her thighs, taking her knickers with them. Then she was naked, wholly and completely bare, laid out in front of him.

He placed her legs on either side of his, nudging them further apart with his knees, and traced one long finger up her inner thigh and across her soaked entrance before circling it around the bundle of nerves at the top. She keened under his touch, back arching off the ground.

He leaned down and kissed her again, surprisingly gently with one hand gripping her neck below her ear, slanting his mouth against hers. She brought her hand up to the side of his face, fingers trailing lightly along his jaw and through the blonde hair that had grown there. She felt him reach down and guide himself to her center, the warm tip barely slipping between her folds when he paused.

“Please,” she whispered against his lips. That was apparently all he needed because he pushed forward until he was buried in her to the hilt. She cried out and spasmed around him, the sudden fullness shocking her, and the sound rang through the empty room. It wasn’t her first time, nor her second or third, but it had been roughly eight months since she had last been in such a position. He stilled completely, seeming to take a moment to collect himself, before he slowly rocked back and then forward again into her.

She brought her knees up, hitching them on either side of his hips and seating him more deeply inside of her. She lifted her pelvis slightly, rolling it up to meet his and he groaned low in the back of his throat.

“Touch yourself,” he growled in her ear a moment later. He shifted down onto his forearms, which were locked on either side of her head, and picked up the pace, sliding in and out of her. She glided her good arm down her stomach and flicked her fingers back and forth over her clit, breathing heavily as warmth pooled in her belly and she coiled like a spring.

“I’m going to come,” she gasped into his shoulder a few moments later, fingers frantically playing over her bud until she felt herself release, falling over the edge and into ecstasy, her nails sinking into his shoulder and a cry slipping from between her lips.

As she came back to herself, still shaking and spasming around him, she felt Malfoy’s rhythm start to falter, pounding into her once. Twice. And then he stilled, a guttural noise bubbling from his chest, one hand dropping to her hip where fingers bit down in a desperate attempt to gain traction. She shifted again and rolled slightly, squeezing and stroking him until he was spent. He nipped her shoulder in a play to cease the movement and she let out a breathy laugh before dropping her head back to the blanket.

Malfoy pulled out of her and rolled to the side over her left arm so their shoulders were touching and they were staring up at the ceiling, laboured breathing slowly returning to normal. The cool air felt good on her heated skin.

Hermione felt another laugh rising in her throat and clapped a hand over her mouth to stop it from escaping. It was no use though. Her shoulders shook and her abdomen tightened as she snickered into her palm.

Malfoy propped himself on his elbows and looked over at her, one eyebrow arched and eyes wide, as if she had lost her mind.

“I can’t say I’ve ever inspired quite this reaction,” he mused. She dropped her hand and all out guffawed in response.

“It’s just that,” she gasped a breath in before continuing, “if someone had told me a month ago that I would be having sex with Draco Malfoy, on the ground no less, I would have thought they were barmy. Just _completely_ mental.”

He tilted his head and quirked his mouth in silent agreement before snorting out a soft laugh himself and sinking back to the blanket. Surely the same was true in reverse too. Her giggling eventually faded, and they lapsed into a pensive but comfortable silence. Quiet had become a familiar constant between them.

She focused on his warm arm pressed against hers and let the wave of calming endorphins wash over her.

“Granger?” he asked, eyes fixed on the ceiling above them.

“Yeah, Malfoy?”

He paused. “I don’t hate you.”

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this chapter because when I started writing this story, I did not plan for them to have sex. At all. But then one thing led to another and suddenly they’re banging on the ground like bunnies... 
> 
> Also, a general disclaimer: I am not in any way a medical professional, the closest I ever came was a couple summers as a lifeguard, so please take my depiction of sepsis with a grain of salt. 
> 
> Next chapter will be up 10/16!
> 
> Many thanks to my Betas, TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade.


	8. Day 16, Decline

> _Tell me your secrets_
> 
> _Give me a friend_
> 
> _Let all the good times flood in_
> 
> _Do I love you?_
> 
> _Do I hate you?_
> 
> _I can't make up my mind_
> 
> _So let's freefall_
> 
> _See where we land_
> 
> _\- Ed Sheeran, Where We Land_

They slept together twice more before Malfoy had the presence of mind to ask about protection, at which she rolled her eyes and informed him she was on a three-month potion that she had taken not long before being captured. It was the same reason she hadn’t menstruated since being here – though she didn’t mention that part. She also brought up the small fact that she would likely be dead within a week or two, so pregnancy was hardly a concern.

It was after one such interlude when they were lying entangled in one another’s arms that she confessed how poorly she was beginning to feel. The aching in her forearm had bled into her whole limb and she was in a near constant state of feeling too hot or too cold.

“I’m not sure we should…” she trailed off, gesturing vaguely at their bodies. While she was satisfied, more than satisfied if she was honest, she was also beyond knackered and she feared pushing herself would only speed things along.

“It’s okay,” he said after a moment, dropping a kiss on her temple and pulling her in closer. While they hadn’t discussed it in as many words, Hermione had spent a great deal of time pondering the change in their relationship. 

He was still moody and antagonistic, she would be daft to expect that to change, but he had also softened toward her. Whether it was because he was developing genuine feelings of affection, or because she was literally dying, she couldn’t be sure. Either way, it was nice.

“Can I ask you for something?” she inquired, twisting in his arms so she could look at his face.

“You can ask, but I won’t promise I’ll do it.”

She rolled her eyes before continuing. “I was wondering… I quite like my name you see, my first name that is. Considering you’re probably the last person I’ll ever speak to…”

She chewed her lip, anxiously studying his face to gauge his reaction.

“I wasn’t aware it bothered you,” he said, looking down at her, eyebrows pulled together slightly.

“It doesn’t really... but despite years of being teased for it, I’m fond of my given name. It reminds me of my mum, she named me after a character in her favorite play.”

“Alright, I can do that… Hermione.”

She didn’t expect the way her stomach would flutter as he said it. It seemed foreign coming from his lips, but it warmed something in her.

“Thank you… Draco.”

oOoOoOo

Days passed. While their extracurricular physical activities had ceased as quickly as they began, their conversations didn’t. The weight of what was happening sank upon both of them and, in an attempt to lessen the burden, they said all the things they hadn’t before. All the things they needed to tell somebody before there was no one left to tell.

Hermione couldn’t help but wonder if, despite how terrible she was feeling, the pain she was in, she might be getting the better end of the deal. When she died, Draco would be alone. Totally alone. She could only hope the elf would take her body so he didn’t have to bear the process of witnessing her decompose.

While occlumency had been an abject failure, the meditation and organization of her mind that came from her attempt to learn helped some. She was more easily able to compartmentalise what was happening to her and stay further in control of her mental faculties than she likely would have been capable of otherwise.

She told Draco about all the things she had been planning to do when the war was over, the ways in which she wanted to reform the magical world, make it a better place for werewolves and centaurs and muggleborns. She had dreams of integrating classes into the Hogwarts curriculum to better transition such students into wizarding culture, so they didn’t have to go through the shock that she had.

He confessed that his prejudices, mostly a result of indoctrination from a father he now loathed, were no longer something he paid credence to. Like he said in their argument the week prior – her blood was as red as his. More importantly, he apologised to her.

He apologised for the effect his words had had on her over the years, both intended and unintended. And she accepted it – seeing no reason to withhold forgiveness after all that had transpired between them.

While Hermione spoke of all the things she had wanted to do, Draco told her about all the things that he had done. Stories of growing up at Malfoy Manor, playing in the gardens with Theodore Nott and flying his first broom over the rolling countryside. He told her about what it was like in Slytherin house, learning quickly how to manoeuver the political battleground and form alliances in place of friendships.

He told her about sixth year. The weight of knowing his mother was held captive while he was tasked with repairing the vanishing cabinet in the room of requirement. He told her about how he had gone weeks that year without sleep and how his hair had started to fall out. He loathed Voldemort, going so far as to say that he wanted the war to come to an end more than anybody.

All the anger she had felt for Tom Riddle over the years, all the hurt and pain he had caused, was amplified as she listened, realizing that Draco had lost his childhood just as much as Harry had.

He faltered only when she asked about his father.

“Did he… hurt you?” she inquired as she laid with her head in his lap, shivering slightly despite his jacket draped over her.

“No, not in the way you’re thinking,” he responded, lips pressed into a tight line. “He manipulated more than anything. I watched him for years, twisting people to get what he wanted, leveraging and blackmailing. For a long time I thought I wanted to be like him, powerful, revered, but as I got older I saw that it wasn’t respect that he inspired, it was fear.”

She nodded slowly, piecing that together with what little first-hand experience she had had with the man.

“Your mum?” she asked, knowing he would understand the question.

“Yeah,” he said after a beat, voice thick and tired sounding. “I didn’t realise until a couple years ago, after the Dark Lord returned, but he… mistreated her. After his failure in the Department of Mysteries, it got worse. He took out his anger on her. He probably would have done the same to me if she didn’t work so hard to keep herself between us.”

As much as Malfoy scoffed at her loyalty to Harry, she could tell he would do anything for his mother. He already had, really.

“Did he tell you about that? The Department of Mysteries?”

They hadn’t quite gotten that far in their discussion of her schoolday experiences, and it wasn’t something she had been anxious to bring up.

“No,” he huffed with a twisted smile, “it wasn’t exactly a topic he enjoyed talking about.”

“I was there,” she explained. “That’s how I got the scar on my chest. Dolohov hit me with something nonverbal after I silenced him.”

“You managed to get a silencing charm on Dolohov?”

She nodded. “He still almost killed me though.”

“He’s one of the best duelists within the Death Eater’s ranks, frankly I’m shocked he didn’t.”

“I can hold my own,” she quipped with a wry smile.

Despite being prone on the ground and unmoving, she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. If she had to guess, the rate was probably upwards of 100 beats per minute. She knew she was starting to decline; she could feel it. She would fight to catch her breath after walking the length of the cell and Draco had had to help her to her feet more than once.

That night was when the dreams started. She was laid out on the blanket with Draco curled around her, sleeping soundly, feverish and fading in and out of consciousness, when Harry suddenly appeared behind his shoulder.

_“Hey ‘Mione,” he said with a smile, glasses slightly askew._

_“Harry,” she breathed, “what are you doing here?”_

_“You’re my best friend, I can’t pop in for a visit?” he asked._

_“I don’t understand how you’re here... am I dead?”_

_His brow furrowed and he looked around as if the answer would be written on one of the walls. “I don’t think so… are you?”_

_“I don’t know…” she said, blinking rapidly, wondering why it was so hot in here. “Where’s Ron?”_

_“Do you care?” he asked, tilting his head toward Draco’s sleeping form._

_“Wait, Harry, the horcruxes – did you find them?”_

_“No, we died, Hermione.”_

_“You… what?” she reeled, trying to make sense of what he was saying, but her thoughts were coming slowly and garbled, as if they were under water._

_“We died trying to escape the Manor,” he explained, looking at her as if she had gone barmy._

_“No… no you didn’t, that didn’t happen. You got out. Draco said you got out.”_

_“Draco now, is it?” he asked her, raising an eyebrow._

_“I don’t… I don’t… You were supposed to go to the Order. You were supposed to get help finding the rest of them.”_

_“Dumbledore said nobody else could know about them.”_

_“Sod Dumbledore!” she half-shouted at him, “You should have gone to Remus, Arthur, Kingsley… they could have helped!”_

_“Yeah, well, we didn’t. We decided to track down the orphanage where Riddle lived to see if there was anything there. We must have tripped a ward because twenty Death Eaters apparated in.”_

_“I told you not to, that he wouldn’t have kept one there.”_

_“With you gone we didn’t have any other leads,” he shrugged. “They killed Ron on the spot and then stunned me and took me to Voldemort.”_

_She shook her head in disbelief, her thoughts fractured and disjointed._

_“Harry, no, you can’t be…no no no…” she started to cry, panting for breath while tears burned tracks down her feverish cheeks._

The image of him dissolved and her shoulders shook... it took her a moment to realize she wasn’t the one shaking them.

“Hermione,” a voice said. “Hermione, wake up. Open your eyes.”

She obeyed with a gasp to see Draco leaning over her.

“Harry... Harry was here… he said he was dead…” she managed to wheeze out, though it felt like a tight band was constricting her chest, making it difficult to breathe.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said firmly, brushing the hair away from her sweaty forehead. “Breathe and think about it, there’s no way Potter can be here. It’s just you and me. Nobody else is here.”

“If he dies… if he dies and he didn’t tell anyone…” her eyes drifted shut through the haze as she tried to explain. Tried to make him understand why Harry and Ron dying was so catastrophic.

“Get some sleep, I’ll wake you up when the elf comes with food.”

Despite her best efforts, she acquiesced.

oOoOoOo

It was the next morning and Hermione, still rattled from her dream the night before, was eating in pensive silence while Draco made another mark on the wall. There were twenty in total now; they had been there nearly three weeks.

Hermione sifted through what little she knew about sepsis and its progression into septic shock and figured she had maybe another two or three days of coherence before she wouldn’t be lucid enough to think straight. She was silently thankful for all of the medical books her parents had left lying around growing up.

She was almost constantly feverish now, though she often felt cold, and she was starting to have difficulty breathing. Her heart would start racing at random intervals, indicating arrhythmias, and overall her body was simply weak.

Draco had taken to wiping down her face and neck whenever the basin and flannel appeared, and he brought food to her in the corner so she didn’t have to move across the room. The only time she got to her feet now was when he helped her to the other corner with the curtain draped around the pail, which she needed less and less frequently.

Though she couldn’t see it herself, he told her that the patches of discolored skin on her arm had worked their way across her shoulders and back.

Hermione knew that she had a choice to make, and, for one of the first times in her life, she was entirely unsure of what to do. Her friends had always looked to her for advice on how to proceed when things got difficult, but now, when the decision was left to her, she was stuck.

“Draco?” she inquired quietly. He sat about a foot away, eating his own bowl of thick, bland porridge. “I need to ask another favour of you.”

“No,” he said vehemently, practically throwing his bowl on the ground in front of him, “I won’t do it.”

“Won’t do what?” she asked, utterly bewildered by his sudden change in demeanor. They had just been comparing defense against the dark arts professors not ten minutes ago.

“I’m not going to smother you, or drown you, or slit your throat, or whatever it is you’re thinking.”

“That’s not what I – you think I want you to _mercy kill me_?”

He remained silent, but narrowed his eyes in suspicion, as if searching her face for an answer.

“That’s not – look, shut up and let me explain. There are some things I need to know first. You said the other day that you wanted the war over, that you wanted You-Know-Who dead. Is that true?”

“Yes,” he said slowly, “but I also know he fancies himself immortal.”

“What if I told you he wasn’t?”

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am apparently not capable of writing chapters that are a consistent length, so next week and the following week will both have two posted instead of one. Also, if didn't combine a couple, we were on track to have the epilogues uploaded on Christmas Day and I'm thinking a few people might have plans (although this year, who knows).
> 
> Next chapter we also begin to jump perspectives a bit, so buckle up for that. 
> 
> Nine and ten will be up on 10/23. 
> 
> Much gratitude to my betas, TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade.


	9. Day 20, Last confessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning, brief instance of suicidal thoughts.

> _If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied_
> 
> _And illuminate the ‘no’s on their vacancy signs_
> 
> _If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks_
> 
> _Then I'll follow you into the dark_
> 
> _\- Death Cab for Cutie, I Will Follow You into the Dark_

“So, you reckon there are seven?”

She nodded. “That was the number he asked about when he first discovered them, and as you’re aware it’s considered powerful in a magical sense as well. The diary, the ring and the locket have already been destroyed. To my knowledge, discounting the one inside him at present, the other three were still intact when we were captured.”

“And you have no idea what or where they are?”

“I have theories about two of them,” she explained, sheepishly. “Given Bellatrix’s reaction, I’m pretty convinced that at some point there was one in her possession, most likely in her Gringotts vault.”

“And the other?”

“The snake, Nagini,” she said. “I know it wouldn’t be rational to make a horcrux out of a living thing, but he’s too attached for her to just be a normal familiar.”

“Alright,” he said slowly, placing his interlocked fingers under his chin while he thought. “Just to be clear, Dumbledore, in all his infinite wisdom, thought it was a good idea to task three students with finding and destroying these? Rather than the numerous aurors and dark magic specialists in your blasted Order?”

“That’s what I said!” she exclaimed, louder than she had intended, sending her into a coughing fit. When she recovered, she continued, “But Harry was dead set on not involving anyone else because of that stupid fucking prophecy.”

“The prophecy saying either he or the Dark Lord has to kill one another?”

“That’s how he and Dumbledore interpreted it – it was actually phrased, ‘neither can live while the other survives,’ which in my opinion is too vague to say for certain that that was what was meant. Also, divination as a general rule is rubbish.”

He inclined his head in agreement before once more sinking into a contemplative stupor.

“You know Granger, as far as deathbed requests go, this is a pretty big ask,” he said weakly, shooting her a scathing look. She had to suppress a smile at his slip, knowing he had been making a conscious effort to call her Hermione.

“I’m not really asking you to do anything,” she defended, “but if I die, and if Harry and Ron died without telling anyone what we were doing, someone needs to know. I would prefer it be someone in the Order, and someone not currently imprisoned with no way of reaching the outside world, but circumstances and all…”

“You’re stuck with me,” he finished. She nodded.

“Draco, horcruxes aside, if you get out of here, if you want to defect… take your mum and get to the Order. Her sister Andromeda is probably your best bet, I’m sure your mother will know how to reach her.”

“Hermione, you have to know that there’s no way they’ll buy that. We’ll be stunned, if not killed, on sight.”

“You have to try,” she pleaded, the conversation from the past several hours was starting to take its toll and she was breathing heavy. “Tell them what happened. Tell them about me. If Harry _is_ still alive, tell him… tell him that I told you to remind him to never use cat hair in a Polyjuice potion. He’ll believe you.”

“Okay, now I know you’re delirious. Get some rest, it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

oOoOoOo

As Hermione drifted into a restless sleep, Draco sat and watched her twitching, sweating form with introspective eyes. If what she’d said was true, which at this point he knew better than to doubt, many of his previous assumptions shifted.

There was a chance, however slim, that Voldemort would lose this war, and that changed everything. He got up from the ground next to her and quietly paced the length of the room.

If he ever managed to get out of this hell hole, and wasn’t completely mad by the time it happened, would he have the courage, or stupidity, to do what she had said? To defect?

The past several weeks had been perhaps the strangest of his life, save for sixth year when he was periodically killing small animals by stuffing them into a broken piece of furniture.

Hermione, no longer just Granger, had pushed and challenged him in a way he wasn’t familiar with, extending opportunities for reconciliation over and over again until he finally grasped one like a man drowning.

He had told her things he’d only ever hinted to Theo and Blaise, things he dared not dwell upon himself, and rather than rebuke or blame him, she simply accepted them. Accepted who he was, who his life had shaped him to be, and that terrified him more than he’d like to admit.

While the sex had come as a bit of a shock, the truly stunning part of it was that it was not unwelcomed. In this place, in this cold grey nothing, she was something warm and vibrant. Something to cling to. He knew it was selfish, but he feared what would happen to him when that light was snuffed out. Not for the first time he cursed his wretched aunt. 

He heard Hermione stir behind him and moved closer for a moment, but she was still asleep, mumbling to herself. He didn’t know if he was prepared for what would come next. Several days ago she had laid it out, talked him through the stages and symptoms she would most likely experience with surprising objectivity – most of which he was unfamiliar with. Illnesses, at least of this nature, simply didn’t progress this far in the magical world. He shuddered to think how frequently it must occur among muggles for it to be common knowledge.

She had been running a fever for days, scorching to the touch but claiming she was chilled, and she was starting to have trouble breathing properly, the sound becoming gasping and wet when she laid down flat.

What he truly dreaded though, was watching her lose her mental acuity. If Hermione Granger valued anything it was her mind, and knowing that that might slip, that she wouldn’t be herself at the end… he couldn’t think of anything crueler.

At the end of the day, which was who the fuck knew when trapped in here, Draco Malfoy was simply angry.

He was angry that they were in here.

He was angry at Bellatrix for all the horrible things she had done.

He was angry with his father for supporting a terrorist and letting him sully their home and infect their lives.

He was angry at his mother for staying, though he felt guilty about that.

He was angry at Hermione, both for forgiving him and for making him care, only to go and die. He knew it wasn’t rational, and it certainly wasn’t fair to her, but that didn’t dull the feeling.

And he was angry at himself for firing that damned spell.

oOoOoOo

The next morning Hermione woke to find Draco holding the damp flannel to her forehead.

“It’s not going to make a difference,” she said bitterly, blinking her eyes open.

“I know,” he responded, but merely moved it down to her neck. He paused at the collar of her jumper and she nodded, letting him pull her into a seated position and strip it over her head.

She hadn’t worn a bra in over a week, the elastic band only further irritating her mottled flesh. At this point he had seen, touched or tasted her in just about every state of undress, so modesty was a thing of the past. Rather, she focused on laying back and enjoying the feel of the cool, if slightly coarse, cloth as it ran across her breasts and down her stomach.

Draco’s eyes fixed on her but it wasn’t in a sexual way– not in the purest sense of the word. He merely regarded her body with a comfortable familiarity.

He moved the cloth down her left arm but made no attempt to clean the right. It hurt too much at this point and frankly she had taken to pretending it wasn’t there. If she didn’t, she would have to acknowledge the disgusting appearance and putrid smell. She gave Draco credit for stomaching it without comment. She had decided it was a distinctly unpleasant way to die, watching your own flesh rot.

Draco finished wiping her down and took her jumper over to the basin, submerging it in the water and wringing it out several times. They had determined the week before that this, followed by a series of weakened drying charms, was not a terrible way to ‘clean’ their clothes and hair.

Neither said anything about the murky gray color the water took on afterward.

After several minutes and nearly a dozen drying charms, he returned with her jumper and helped slip it over her head, carefully maneuvering the sleeve over her bad arm.

“Do you need to use the loo?” he asked her, to which she shook her head.

“Can you just hold me for a few minutes?” she requested, chest heaving from the effort she had exerted. “I’m so tired…”

Her eyes drifted shut again and she missed the broken expression that flashed across his face.

oOoOoOo

“Where am I?” Hermione asked, half-opened eyes roving around the room.

“You’re in the cell, you’re okay,” he lied to her for the fifth time that day.

“It hurts, I want my mum,” she responded in a whisper, choking out a sob while her shoulders shook.

“I know, I’m sorry,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to her burning forehead before burying his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry.”

oOoOoOo

It was on the twenty-seventh day in the cell that he couldn’t coax her to eat anymore, but it had been days since she had moved from the blanket in the corner without him carrying her.

She would wake every so often, alternating between crying for her parents or Potter or himself. He took some sick satisfaction in the fact that she never once asked for the Weasel.

Of all the hardship he had faced, all the darkness that had invaded his existence, this was the worst. Perhaps it was recency bias, but in the deepest parts of himself it felt true.

Draco alternated between laying with her, wiping her brow with the cloth, and pacing the room. He ate her food in addition to his for fear that if it returned untouched too many times that they, whoever they were, would stop sending it. He wasn’t sure why it mattered, but the idea of the tray appearing with one bowl, one spoon and one cup felt significant, like it marked an ending that he wasn’t prepared for.

There wasn’t some grand goodbye, no dramatic last words between them. She slipped slowly, gradually, into incoherency and he reconciled himself to the fact that the last thing he would hear from her would likely be incomprehensible muttering or crying.

He considered briefly that, once she had passed, perhaps it would be easiest to simply end his own life. What was the alternative? Sitting with her body while it rotted? Talking to himself until he created voices in his head to respond? He figured he could make enough shallow slices along his arms to eventually bleed out.

Suicidal musings aside, what he was struggling with at this point, more than anything else, was the purpose of all of it. Why keep them here only to let them die? What could possibly be gained from this?

Hermione cried out for him and he crossed the room to her side, soothing her as best he could before squeezing his eyes shut tightly. He felt as if his life had become an experiment in horror, like some great, unforeseen presence was seeing how far one man could be pushed before he cracked.

Why make him love her only to make him let her go?

oOoOoOo 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to my betas, TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade!


	10. Day 30, Bargaining

> _So you were never a saint_
> 
> _And I loved you in shades of wrong_
> 
> _We learn to live with the pain_
> 
> _Mosaic broken hearts_
> 
> _But this love is brave and wild_
> 
> _\- Taylor Swift, State of Grace_

It was the morning of the thirtieth day; the elf had just left the tray, and Draco sat vigil beside Hermione. She hadn’t regained consciousness in over 24 hours, so dehydrated from sweating and crying that she didn’t even need to use the bathroom.

He would try and drip water between her cracked lips, but, as she had so astutely pointed out, it didn’t make any difference at this point.

He held her hand, her fragile fingers enveloped by his, and he felt her pulse, thready and weak. He didn’t think it would be long now.

That was when, for the first time in his life, Draco Malfoy began to beg. For a miracle, some eleventh-hour phenomenon that allowed him to keep her. For her to stay. Sitting in the silent grey, he implored and pleaded with the universe not to take her away from him.

“Please don’t leave me,” he beseeched quietly, pressing their interlocked hands against his lips. “Please Hermione, please don’t go. I can’t be here without you. Please, please, please… ”

He barely registered when tears breached his eyelids, silent confessions made to nobody rolling down his cheeks.

He curled around her and rested his head on her stomach, listening to her heart, still beating, still fighting, and eventually he let himself drift.

oOoOoOo

_Draco was standing in the entryway of the great hall, students milling about all around him. It was too bright, everything oversaturated and vibrant, and the roaring background noise engulfed him like a wave as he fought to keep his head above the water._

_He wasn’t wearing his Hogwarts uniform, rather he was clad in muggle jeans, trainers and a black long-sleeve t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looked down to see his forearm shockingly bare, just a smooth expanse of milky flesh, the likes of which he hadn’t sported in nearly two years._

_He ran his hand over it, as if he were waiting for the ink to rise to the surface, but it remained unblemished._

_He looked around him at the students passing by, but they moved as if he weren’t there. As he examined more closely, he saw that their faces were blank – not in the sense that they weren’t expressive, but literally blank, devoid of eyes or a nose or a mouth, like an unfinished doll._

_He felt his heart begin to pound in his chest, his skin crawling with the wrongness of all of it. Then, in the distance, a face caught his eye – partly because it_ was _a face, an actual face, but mostly because it was her. Hermione._

_He stepped toward her but she smiled over her shoulder at him and then turned in the other direction, ducking down a side passage._

_He followed her, but as he rounded the corner he stopped. She was perhaps 30 paces away in the middle of the empty corridor, turned and staring at him. It was then that he realized this wasn’t his Hermione at all._

_Her hair was sleek and pulled into a twist at the base of her neck. Rather than being clad in Gryffindor colors as she usually was, her tie and the hood of her robes were silver and green. A crest with a snake curled in the middle of it lay over her left breast._

_The most shocking thing about her appearance though, was the expression on her face. Her smile held none of the warmth he had come to know. Instead it was cold and cruel, more of a sneer. And her eyes were a deep black, like pieces of coal._

_He turned to run away from this horrific, demonic version of her, but his feet were rooted to the spot. She stepped closer, forbidding smile stretching and pulling her lips unnaturally wide over too-white teeth._

_She had closed maybe half the distance between them when a silver knife slowly slipped into her hand from the sleeve of her robe._

_He tried to scream, tried to move, but he was paralysed, sucking in frantic breaths._

_She finally came to a stop in front of him, so close that their chests were almost touching, her eyes locked on his face with a dead stare._

_She raised the knife to eye level, twisting it, and he recognized the blade with a wave of dread. When she opened her mouth, instead of her own voice, Bellatrix Lestrange’s cruel, taunting cackle came out._

_“Wanna play, mudblood?”_

Draco awoke with a start, sitting up next to Hermione, his Hermione, who was still sleeping on the ground. He blinked, his mind addled with sleep, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.

Across from him, in the pale light, the door of the cell was swinging open.

Draco clamored to his feet, looking frantically around the room for anything he could use to defend himself, when none other than Blaise Zabini strode through the entryway to his prison, causing him to freeze in place.

“Bloody hell Drake, what on earth are you doing in here?” he asked, twirling his wand dexterously between his fingers. “Haven’t you heard there’s a war on?”

Before Draco could respond, could even form a thought, Theodore Nott followed Blaise in, cleaning his glasses on the hem of his white oxford shirt before placing them back on the bridge of his nose.

“Well this is certainly a step down from Malfoy Manor, isn’t it?” he wrinkled his nose slightly as he spun slowly and took in the room.

“I don’t… are you… are you real?” Draco asked, blinking rapidly and shaking his head, staring at the two men across from him.

“Of course we’re real, you great prat, we’re rescuing you,” Blaise scoffed, “why the hell would you – Merlin’s beard, is that Granger?”

Theo leaned around Draco and took in Hermione’s unconscious form on the ground with an incredulous eyebrow raised.

“Sweet Salazar, did you kill her?” he asked, sounding more curious than anything.

“No, no she’s not, not yet…we have to get her out of here. Is there anyone else out there?” Draco asked, snapping back to reality and moving to the corner where he bent to pick up Hermione.

“Not anymore,” Blaise said with a cheeky grin. “We took out two no-name Death Eaters upstairs, and a bloody deranged elf that tried to attack me with a fireplace poker.”

Draco stood with Hermione’s limp body cradled to his chest and moved toward the door of the cell.

He stopped at the threshold, hesitating briefly, before stepping forward.

“Which way?” he asked over his shoulder.

“After me,” Theo said, wand drawn, gesturing to the left and down the corridor. He stepped ahead and took the lead while Zabini brought up the rear, Draco and Hermione between them. They passed flickering torches mounted on the wall that stung Draco’s eyes, which had grown unaccustomed to direct light. There were four more identical iron doors hanging open to the left.

They soon reached a steep flight of stone stairs and began ascending. Draco’s legs felt weak, having done little more than pace the length of the cell in the last month, but he held Hermione steady against him, her mutilated arm hanging down and bobbing to the side. 

As they climbed the last few steps before the landing, a body came into view, face down with a pool of blood still slowly creeping outward. Theo stepped over one of the sprawled legs without a second glance and Draco followed suit, momentarily grateful that Hermione was unconscious. They crossed into a dimly lit drawing room, much less grand than the one at Malfoy Manor, but exuding no small amount of dark magic. He was correct in the conclusion that he had drawn weeks ago following Hermione’s assault on the house elf. They were in the home of Bellatrix Lestrange.

In the corner there stood a crushing cabinet with old, dried blood dripped down the front, and on the mantle over the stone fireplace was a hand of glory, gnarled and claw-like. He wondered if it was the same one from Hogwarts the year prior. On the hearth of the fireplace lay the house elf, neck severed and fireplace poker still clutched in his tiny hand.

He felt Blaise sidle up behind him.

“Where’s everyone else?” Draco asked.

“Gathering at Malfoy Manor,” Blaise responded, crossing to the French doors that sat across from the fireplace and firing a silent unlocking charm, causing them to swing outward. “They’re preparing for an assault on Hogwarts tonight.”

“Where can we go? She needs medical attention,” Draco said, tipping his head down to look at Hermione. “Blood cleansing potions, essence of dittany, wiggenweld if possible…”

“Well, the plan was to apparate to Zabini’s mum’s flat in London before catching a portkey to Italy, but there’s nothing like that there, and she doesn’t exactly look up to international travel at the moment,” Theo explained, gesturing to Hermione.

Draco could feel her chest barely rising and falling against his own and shook his head.

“Why exactly are we rescuing the Gryffindor golden girl again?” Blaise asked, seemingly annoyed that their plan wasn’t executing as intended.

“Because I said so,” Draco bit back. “What about Nott Manor? You said everyone is gathering at my house, so there wouldn’t be anyone there.”

Theo looked vaguely ill at the prospect, but he finally nodded.

“Yeah, it should be empty and there are pretty extensive potions stores in the basement… there may or may not be enchantments in place to disallow muggleborns from entering the grounds though.”

“You don’t know?” Draco asked, blanching slightly.

“Well it hasn’t exactly come up before!” Theo retorted, rolling his eyes. “I _think_ it was just a myth made up by my wanker ancestors.”

“Fine, we don’t have a better option,” Draco bit out tensely. “Have either of you seen my wand anywhere?”

Blaise produced a handful of them from his pocket. “Found them down near the cells, we weren’t sure which one was yours.”

Draco stepped closer and looked them over before concluding his own hawthorn wand wasn’t there. He ran his hand over a few of them before plucking a ten-inch ebony from the lot that didn’t feel too combative.

“Hold on to the rest, I don’t know which one is hers,” he directed.

“We’re arming her now?” Blaise asked dubiously, but he raised his hands in surrender when Draco shot him a scathing look. “Alright, wand for Granger, got it.”

“Let’s get out of here please,” Theo urged from near the open doors. The trio, plus Hermione, crossed the threshold and walked out into the fading afternoon light.

oOoOoOo

They apparated to the very border of the Nott estate, located in the countryside north of Brighton.

“Okay,” Theo huffed, looking a little green as he took in their surroundings. “The wards start just beyond that beech tree – if there is anything preventing her from entering the grounds, we’ll find out pretty quickly.”

Draco sucked in a deep breath and held it, pulling Hermione slightly tighter against him as he strode forward. He passed the tree and stopped, all three men looked down at her unconscious form, waiting for something to happen. When it didn’t, there was an audible sigh of relief.

They took off at a light jog up the hill to the towering stone edifice outlined against the sky.

“Out of curiosity,” Blaise asked, panting a little, “what did you think might have happened when she crossed the wards?”

“Erm, one of the older portraits used to talk about how the skin would be flayed from the body of any muggle or muggleborn that entered the grounds,” Theo answered quietly. Upon seeing the murderous look on Draco’s face he quickly continued, “I never believe it though, and the old codger was clearly just posturing. Totally batty.”

Blaise caught his eye behind Draco’s back and raised an eyebrow in question, to which Theo shrugged, silently mouthing, _‘I had no idea.’_

They made it up to the front entryway as the door swung open, revealing a house elf wearing a stained tea towel.

“Bad Master Theo is returning home,” he gasped, wringing his ears. “Tippy is to be telling Master Nott right away, he is not being happy with Master Theo!”

Theo had opened his mouth to respond when the elf suddenly crumpled to the ground, stunned. Draco and Theo turned to Blaise who shrugged, wand still held aloft. “I’m sorry, are we not in a bit of a rush?”

Theo levitated the elf to the left of the entrance and the three boys made their way into the front sitting room where Draco quickly deposited Hermione on a green sofa. The house was nearly as dark as Lestrange Manor had been, heavy curtains framing the windows and various cursed artefacts placed around the room.

Theo flicked his wand and quickly silenced a large portrait over the fireplace that started screaming about mudblood filth violating the sanctity of Nott Manor.

“Okay, potions are in the basement,” Theo said, he and Draco taking off further into the house. Theo cast ahead of them, freezing the portraits before they ran past so the ones with multiple frames couldn’t report on what was happening to anyone.

Blaise was left standing in the front room, catching his breath and staring down at the girl that had caused them so much trouble. He examined her arm hanging off the couch and nearly retched at the sight of the rotting green and white gashes surrounded by red and purple skin. Frankly she looked like she was already dead.

Draco and Theo skidded back into the room a few minutes later, levitating an apothecary’s worth of potions behind them. Draco dropped to his knees next to the sofa and began to summon them to him, his shaking hands un-stoppering the vials one by one.

“Mate, I don’t know if she’s…” Blaise started, incredulity coloring his voice. 

“She’s fine, she’s going to be fine,” Draco snapped without looking up.

First, he dumped a light purple potion across her arm, intended to remove contaminants from tissue and blood. He figured it was working when the flesh started to bubble and smoke, letting off a positively vile scent that made him pause for a moment and breathe through his mouth, swallowing hard and pushing down the urge to vomit. He heard a gag off to the side but didn’t look to see who it was.

The angry red patches down her arm and across her neck started to fade until eventually there was just the actual wound left, looking the same as it had when she received it. He poured another vial of the purple liquid over it for good measure, which smoked again briefly before stopping, at which point he vanished it away.

Next he grabbed a vial of essence of dittany, discarding the dropper and decanting it directly onto the wound. He could have cried with relief when it began to close. Pink and white scar tissue appeared in place of the open gashes, rather than the unmarred flesh that likely would have occurred had the wound not been magical in nature, but this wasn’t the time to be greedy. He glanced up at Hermione’s face to find her still unconscious.

He turned and looked over his shoulder. Theo was standing stark still in the middle of the room as if someone had petrified him, having taken on a greyish pallor. Blaise was in the corner, bent over with his hands on his knees, sucking in rapid breaths and clearly trying to avoid being sick.

“Help me prop her up,” Draco directed, and Theo paused for just a moment, seeming as though he were suffering a small existential crisis, before moving behind Hermione and pulling her forward into a reclined position, resting her head against his chest. Draco summoned two more vials from behind him and un-stoppered them. Wiggenweld, with the hope that it would address any internal damage from the infection, and a general nourishment potion to combat the dehydration and lack of food she had taken in for the past week.

He gripped her jaw, pinching so it opened, and poured the first into her mouth. He lightly massaged her throat, flooded with relief when she instinctively swallowed the viscous liquid. He repeated the process with the second potion.

Once done he fell backwards onto the rug and tried to catch his breath, still shaking with adrenaline.

Theo stood up and laid her back on the sofa, an unreadable expression on his face. Blaise, having finally conquered his gag reflex, regained his composure and joined him. They looked down at their friend, who was filthy, dressed in ragged clothing, and sporting a scruffy beard, trying to process everything they’d just witnessed.

“Okay, I’ll be the one to ask,” Blaise finally said. “What the fuck happened in that cell?”

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They’re finally out! And it only took ten very angsty chapters. If you can’t tell, I have a lot of fun writing Blaise and Theo. 
> 
> Chapters 11 and 12 will be uploaded on 10/30; let's pretend it's a Samhain treat and not an indication that I have no control over how long my chapters are. 
> 
> Beta love to TanzaniteWrites and JustLilyJade.


	11. Explanations

> _I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light._
> 
> _\- Helen Keller_

After having done all he knew how for Hermione, Draco was reluctant to leave her side. He was concerned that she hadn’t yet regained consciousness, but her pulse was stronger and, considering her organs had quite literally been shutting down, he assumed it was probably normal. If any of this could be called normal.

Theo, after binding the house elf they had encountered earlier and dosing him with a sleeping draught, disappeared toward the kitchen in search of food while Blaise and Draco settled into two wingback chairs on either side of the fireplace. The still silenced portrait merely scowled at them.

“Seriously mate,” Blaise began, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, “the last time I saw you, you wouldn’t have spit on Hermione Granger if she were on fire, now you’re running around like a lunatic trying to save her life.”

Draco understood how it must have looked, but he was too exhausted to care what they might think of him.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said tiredly, wiping his hand across his face as he leaned back into the soft cushions of the chair. He realized with a start how nice it was to sit on something other than the ground. “What about you? Have you been in Italy this whole time?”

Blaise hadn’t returned to Hogwarts after the winter holiday and Draco hadn’t heard from him prior to his own internment.

“Yeah,” he said, “you know my family doesn’t like to get involved in anything that could mean risking their own necks. When things started getting really bad, my mum packed up and moved us to the villa outside Milan.”

Draco had visited the place with Blaise several summers ago. It was much smaller than their estate in the UK, but equally lavish. Blaise’s mother had something of a habit of marrying wealthy men shortly before their tragic deaths.

“You couldn’t write, you git?”

“To the house where the Dark Lord was holed up? Or to the school that his henchmen are running?”

“Fair enough,” he conceded after a pause, inclining his head. “How did Theo end up with you?”

Just then the man in question drifted back into the room, levitating a tray of tea and sandwiches in front of him.

“I hate this fucking house,” he said bitterly, placing the tray on the low coffee table before settling on the ground in front of it. “You know there’s a severed finger in my ice chest right now? No explanation, no sign of the bloke who lost it, just a severed finger. Who does that?”

Blaise put down the sandwich he had picked up without taking a bite. Draco, desperate for something that wasn’t dry bread and didn’t need to be eaten with a spoon, dug in with gusto, suppressing a groan of pleasure as he chewed.

“I was just filling Drake in on our torrid love affair in Italy,” Blaise said with a cheeky smirk and a wink. He stirred a cup of tea, having apparently decided that was safer than the sandwiches. Theo snorted.

“If that’s what you consider a love affair, I feel bad for the women you bed. Well… worse for them than I already did.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Blaise said pointedly, “I’ve been in Italy since Christmas. This one stuck it out until the spring holiday.”

Theo swallowed his bite of sandwich and took a draught of tea before turning to Draco.

“My dad tried to have me marked when I got home,” he explained, trying not to let his eyes linger on his friend’s forearm. “He kept talking about it like it was the best thing that could have possibly happened to me, said as soon as the Dark Lord returned to the country there would be some sort of initiation. I packed a bag and split the minute he turned his back, apparated up the coast to Dover and then took a broom across the Channel. Once I was there I owled Blaise and he came and got me from Calais with a portkey.”

“That explains the elf’s attitude,” Draco muttered.

“You wouldn’t believe what it’s like on the continent,” Blaise said, shaking his head. “No sign of the war at all, save for a few other refugees jumping the border.”

Draco had known that, or presumed as much in any event, but it was still difficult to hear. While the wizards and witches of Britain were being imprisoned, seeing their families tortured and murdered, the rest of the world continued on as usual.

He looked at Hermione’s sleeping form on the couch and wondered how different her life would be, _their_ lives would be, had they simply been born a couple hundred miles to the East. Even blood prejudices, while existent in other countries, were not nearly as rampant in Continental Europe.

Draco shook himself from the thought to see Blaise and Theo silently arguing about something, hissing at one another with pursed lips and wide eyes. Finally Theo seemed to come to the conclusion that he ultimately didn’t care what Blaise thought because he turned to Draco.

“So, the girl…”

“I tried to tell him you didn’t want to talk about it,” Blaise said in an exasperated tone, sinking back into his chair.

“It’s fine,” Draco huffed, acknowledging that this was a losing battle as he set his empty teacup back on the tray. “What do you want to know?”

“I guess what I want to know is how you two ended up in there together in the first place,” Theo responded, pulling himself up onto the corner of the unoccupied couch. For all Blaise was trying not to pry, he leaned forward slightly in his chair, awaiting a response.

Draco debated whether he should tell them the truth or give the vague half-answer that he had offered Hermione. He still felt guilty about it, but when she had asked, he wasn’t much in the business of being honest with her. By the time they had started speaking to one another candidly, he knew it would have done little more than made her feel culpable for his presence in the cell.

“It was over the spring holiday,” Draco began, “which appears to have been an eventful break for everyone. I had just arrived home and I was holed up in the library with my mother when Bellatrix came in, screaming about how they had caught Potter.”

“Really? How the hell could he have let himself be captured?” Blaise mused. “He’s a ponce, but his ability to at least keep alive is sort of his trademark.”

“Do you want the story or not?” Draco snipped. Blaise raised his hands in surrender and fell silent. “Anyway, we go into the drawing room to find Fenrir Greyback and a gaggle of snatchers hauling in Potter, Granger and Weasley. Bellatrix wanted me to identify them, but…”

He took a steadying breath before continuing. “Potter had been hit with some kind of stinging hex and his face was completely swollen. Bellatrix wanted to be absolutely certain that he was actually Potter before summoning the Dark Lord from out of the country. So, I lied. I said I wasn’t sure it was him.”

He paused for an instant, waiting for a reaction, but he ploughed forward a moment later when none came.

“Then Bellatrix noticed one of the snatchers was holding some sword and she absolutely lost her shite, grabbed it and started screaming about the ‘gravity of the situation.’ Potter and Weaselbee were hauled down to the dungeons and the snatchers were thrown out, but she kept Granger so she could interrogate her.”

“Torture her to death, you mean…” Theo muttered, to which Draco nodded. Blaise looked a little miffed that he wasn’t chastised for interrupting.

“I’d seen people tortured before,” he said, “seen dozens of strangers murdered at the Manor and at Death Eater revels, but none that I… I didn’t know them. I knew her. I certainly didn’t like her, but we’d grown up together. She kept screaming that she didn’t know anything, and Bellatrix kept hitting her again and again with the cruciatus. I don’t know why she didn’t use legilimency to find whatever she was looking for; I think she was even less in touch with reality than usual.”

Draco swallowed hard, trying to avoid being sucked into the memory of standing there, watching Hermione writhe on the ground in pain. He glanced up to make sure she was still unconscious before continuing.

“I was beginning to crack when Bellatrix switched to a blade and started carving up her arm. My mother saw what was happening and disarmed me, but I managed to get the knife out of Bellatrix’s hand first. Potter and Weasley came tearing in then, I’ve no idea how they escaped the dungeons, and everything went arse over teakettle after that. I dove and tried to get to my wand, but there were spells flying everywhere. I don’t know what the fuck caused it, but a second later the chandelier fell.”

“That big-arse monstrosity in the drawing room?” Blaise asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Draco answered with a small chuckle. “By the time the dust cleared Potter and Weasley were gone and Granger had just avoided being crushed by the thing. She must have passed out somewhere in there because she was unconscious at that point. My father apparently realised what I had done because he stunned me before I even got up off the ground. A few hours later I woke up in the cell with her.”

“Bloody hell…” Theo said, staring a hole into the coffee table, lost in thought. “And I thought I had a rough holiday.”

The trio sat in silence for a moment before Blaise shook his head and got up, claiming he had to use the loo. When he disappeared, Theo turned to Draco.

“What happened earlier,” he started slowly, “with the potions and everything… that wasn’t just you not hating Granger.” 

Draco could have bet he would be the one to pick up on it; Theo was always too observant for his own good. They had often joked about him being a seer.

“No, no, I suppose it wasn’t,” Draco replied tightly, avoiding eye contact and trying to keep his expression neutral. He could feel Theo studying his face. Whatever he was looking for he must have found because after a beat he nodded once and sat back in his chair.

“Hey, Drake,” Blaise called, walking back into the room a moment later, “you said Granger has been with you this whole time, right?”

He had a newspaper clutched in his hands and was staring at it with a perplexed expression on his face.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well then, it seems someone has been playing with Polyjuice potion,” he said, tossing it onto the table in front of them.

There, on the cover, stood Hermione next to the Minister of Magic. They were on a raised platform at what looked like a press conference, and she was staring blankly forward while cameras flashed across her face.

Floating above the photo was a headline, “Hermione Granger shows support for Muggle-Born Registration Commission.”

oOoOoOo

After much convincing, and no small amount of shaming him about how he smelled, Theo and Blaise were able to get Draco to put the newspaper down and go upstairs to shower and change, promising that they would stay with Hermione until he returned.

When he disappeared around the corner, the two boys turned and stared at the still unconscious witch laid on the sofa in front of them.

“So are they…?” Blaise trailed off, gesturing between her and the doorway through which Draco had just left.

“Yeah, I think so,” Theo responded, still trying to wrap his head around the whole situation. Blaise paused for a moment.

“Huh.”

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *As we are officially passing the halfway point of this story, I just want to remark upon how grateful I am to each and every one of you for taking the time to read something that I have written. It has been a truly lovely and humbling experience. Please enjoy, and Blessed Samhain!* 
> 
> Chapter 12 is up today as well, make sure you check it out. 
> 
> Thank you to TanzaniteWrites for beta-reading this chapter.


	12. Loyalties

> _Parents can only give [their children] good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands._
> 
> _\- Anne Frank_

When Draco reached the top of the stairs, he stopped for a moment and braced himself against the wood paneling. She was going to live. She was going to be okay.

Unfortunately, this created almost as many problems as it solved. There was a portkey waiting for him in London and he wanted nothing more than to take her to Italy, far away from any more danger or pain, but she wasn’t one to run from a fight; if he knew anything about her, he knew that.

His mind drifted back to the copy of the Daily Prophet from downstairs. At least he finally had an answer to the “why” of the matter. All this time they were keeping her alive to further a propaganda scheme, in case they needed to take more hair. That was it. Polyjuice potion didn’t work with a dead person as the subject of transformation. Nobody was even monitoring closely enough to piece together that she _had_ nearly died. They were stuffed in that cell and forgotten about, known only to each other and a mute, half-blind house elf.

Draco couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps there was a doppelganger of himself wandering about as well, but he didn’t think there would be any tactical advantage in that. He knew his father and he would bet galleons for gargoyles that the man had locked him in the cell with Hermione as some twisted form of punishment for his transgression. The Dark Lord might not even know about it.

Now that he had said it out loud, spoken about what had actually happened, he was faced with the fact that he had risked everything, his own life, his mother’s life, for a girl he didn’t even like.

Then he realised what he was missing, the question he had failed to ask since getting out. Turning from the doorway to the bedroom, he ran back down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“Blaise, Theo, my mother!” he shouted frantically. “What happened to my - ?”

He came up short. As if summoned, seated on the couch in the front parlor conversing in hushed tones with Theo and Blaise, sat Narcissa Malfoy.

“Draco,” she breathed with a smile upon seeing him, getting to her feet and crossing the room in several long strides before pulling him tightly into her arms. Draco could see over her shoulder as Theo dragged Blaise from the room and shoved him in the direction of the kitchens.

“C’mon,” he muttered, “you can see the finger.”

Draco buried his head in his mother’s neck and drew in several ragged breaths before she pushed his shoulders away from her and placed a hand on either side of his face, looking him over as she had when he was a boy, before releasing him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a shaking voice. They moved back to the sofa across from Hermione and sank down.

“I’m the one that told Blaise and Theodore where you were, did they not say?”

He shook his head no.

“That’s alright, it appears things were rather more eventful than I had anticipated,” she said, nodding across the room to the slumbering witch with a sly smile. “I can’t stay for long, I’m meant to be meeting your father at Hogwarts.”

“What – no, that’s absurd, just come with us,” he said with a bewildered expression, trying to understand why she would even consider such a thing.

“I’m sorry Draco, I can’t do that.”

“Why?” he demanded. “Because of father? Enough is enough mother, come, leave with us. Please.”

“It was never about your father…”

“Don’t say it’s about me,” he snapped at her, suddenly furious. “You don’t get to put that on me, running off to die, claiming it’s all for your son. Your son is here, and he’s asking you not to go.”

“My sweet boy,” she said, reaching over and stroking his cheek. “I know I spoiled you, but you must know that not _everything_ is about you, right? There is more than one person in play tonight whose life I care about.”

“I don’t understand,” Draco said, still fuming. “Who else? If not me or father, who?”

“Severus.”

A still, silent moment passed between them while he tried to comprehend what she had said.

“You’re in love with Snape?!” he exclaimed, looking as though he might be ill.

“Oh, heavens no,” she laughed softly. “But I _do_ love him. He’s been my best friend as long as you’ve been alive Draco; he’s your Godfather, he risked his own life last year because I asked it of him. I love you endlessly darling, but there was someone there for me long before you were old enough to realize what my lot in life truly was.”

He looked dazed, huffing out a shocked breath as he fell back into the cushions behind him.

“All this time? You and Snape… how did I not know this?”

“Children often see only what they want to see with regards to their parents,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the darkening sky. “Draco, you need to know how sorry I am. For all the hurt, all the loss. I have a great many regrets, but none more so than having to watch you be tempered and scarred by the darkness in your own home.”

He leaned forward and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until starbursts appeared, not knowing how to respond.

“I need to go,” she said, standing with a sigh. “I’ve already stayed too long. Someone is going to notice.”

“Please, please come with us,” he pleaded, pulling his hands away and looking up into her face, lined prematurely with years of pain and heartache.

“You’ll be okay,” she said, pushing an errant piece of hair off his forehead. “Go to Italy with Blaise and Theodore. Take Miss Granger with you if she’ll allow it.”

“It’s not me that I’m bloody concerned about!” he shouted, feeling as though he were watching everything slip through his fingers, still as helpless as he had been when he was locked away in the cell. “Why is it that everyone I care about is so desperate to run into the line of fire under the pretence of loyalty?!”

“Surely you understand by now that there are people worth running into a fire for,” she said, a knowing glint in her eye. “Those boys in the kitchen were ready to march into battle the minute I told them where you were being held.”

She hesitated for a moment, selecting her words judiciously. “Take care of her, Draco. I’ve seen what loss can do to a man and it’s not something that I wish for you. Don’t let your heart be hardened because of the mistakes other people have made.”

He breathed heavily for a moment and then got to his feet, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug against his chest.

“Please don’t die, mum,” he whispered.

“I’ll certainly try not to, my dragon.”

oOoOoOo

Hermione blinked her eyes open slowly, her heart sinking as she took in the dimly lit room around her. It took a moment to register that it was not the same dimly lit room that she had grown accustomed to.

“Drake said to keep the lighting low so it didn’t hurt your eyes,” a voice explained to her from nearby. She looked over and saw two boys, men really, sitting side by side on a dark green sofa, staring at her.

She recognized them vaguely from school as Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott, or Theo, as Draco had referred to him.

Blaise looked to be about as tall as Draco, but he was more muscular, with broad shoulders and a dark complexion. He had a chiseled jaw and an angled nose, with deeply set almond-shaped eyes. Theo looked a bit more like Draco in his features, aristocratic and sharp, but he was smaller in stature and naturally slim. He had a wavy mop of dark brown hair on top of his head, which contrasted with pale skin.

“Where -” she started but stopped to clear her throat when her voice cracked. Theo gestured to the table between them that held a tray with sandwiches, glasses of water, and tea. She gratefully sat up and took a long draft from one of the water glasses before trying to speak again. “Where am I?”

“Nott Manor,” Theo answered. “For which I am deeply sorry.”

She must have looked alarmed because Blaise rolled his eyes at his friend before turning to her.

“He’s sorry because he hates the place, not because you aren’t safe here,” he explained.

“Oh,” she said dumbly, still trying to get her bearings. With a start, she ripped the sleeve of her jumper up to examine her arm, gasping when she saw it was back to normal – or, as normal as it was ever going to be with ‘Mudblood’ carved into it. She ran her hand over the puckered, newly healed flesh and shivered a little. “What happened? How did we get out? Where’s Draco?”

“We rescued you,” Blaise said haughtily, puffing his chest out a little, “and Draco is upstairs taking a much-needed shower.”

“Speaking of which, I need to go find some clothes for him so he’s not wandering around starkers,” Theo said, getting to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“How did you find us?” she asked Blaise, who had settled back into the cushions on the sofa across from her after Theo disappeared. She leaned forward and grabbed a sandwich off the tray on the table and started eating. She didn’t catch the dark, fleeting look Blaise gave the food as she did so.

“Drake’s mum tipped us off about a week ago that you were being held at the Lestrange’s – we’d been sitting on our hands and waiting for the go-ahead to get you out when it finally came earlier today.”

She processed this information, coming to grips with the fact that she had been, rather heroically, rescued by two Slytherins.

“Is Draco alright? I wasn’t… I think it’s been a few days since I was properly coherent.”

“He was running around like a man possessed trying to save your life this afternoon, but yeah, other than that he seems okay.”

“What happened today? I mean, why did you come for us today specifically?”

“ _That_ is perhaps something I should let Draco fill you in on,” he said hesitantly. 

They lapsed into silence for a moment before he exclaimed, “Oh, I have your wand! Maybe. Possibly.”

He produced a handful of eight or so from his pocket and she leaned forward to examine them, her heart leaping when she spotted her own vinewood wand. She reached her hand out and grabbed it, nearly crying with relief at the familiar feeling of the wood beneath her fingers.

“Look,” Blaise started slowly, in a serious tone, “I don’t really know you, and I don’t know exactly what happened between you two while you were locked in that cell - frankly I don’t want to. All I ask is that you please not hurt my friend. Draco has been through a lot and, more than almost anyone I know, he deserves a little peace.”

She sat stock still, stunned by the change of topic. “I wouldn’t… At least not purposely…”

“Good enough,” Blaise said quickly, waving her off and looking distinctly uncomfortable. Theo reappeared in the doorway.

“He was just getting out if you want to head up,” he said. “First door on your left.”

She nodded in gratitude and made to leave the room when she noticed a newspaper on the end table next to her. She looked down at the cover and her eyes went wide.

“What the fuck?”

oOoOoOo

After Narcissa left, Draco went back upstairs to the bedroom Theo had directed him to and stripped off his stiff, somewhat malodorous clothes before stepping into a shower in the adjoining loo.

Hot water streamed over his back and, much like when he sat in the chair downstairs, he was shocked at how grateful he was for something as simple as a shower.

Once he was clean, he stepped out and looked at himself in the mirror over the sink. His hair was longer than he usually let it get, falling forward across the side of his forehead. His face, though flushed from the hot water, looked somewhat sallow and sunken in, with dark circles under his eyes.

Before his mother departed, he had asked her if she knew where his wand was and she said she didn’t, that both his and hers had been taken in the Malfoy drawing room a month ago. After she’d disarmed him, for fear that Bellatrix would kill him on the spot if she saw him trying to protect Hermione, Potter had disarmed her. She hadn’t accounted for Lucius.

He grabbed the confiscated wand off the vanity and flicked it, performing a shaving charm and vanishing the hair that drifted into the sink in front of him. That, more than anything, made him feel more like himself. He vowed never to grow a beard again if he could help it – they itched.

He cast one more spell to brush his teeth before he wrapped a towel around his hips and crossed back into the bedroom to find that Theo had laid an assortment of clothes on the bed. He selected a pair of plain, black trousers, a dark green oxford shirt, and black loafers. He was a bit taller than his friend, so he had to transfigure the hem of the pants after pulling them on.

Turning and crossing the room he put his hand on the door that led back into the hall. As he twisted the knob and pulled it open, he froze, because behind the door, raising her fist to knock, was Hermione.

They stood and stared at one another, and he felt himself holding his breath. Were things different now that they were no longer in a bubble? Would she want to pretend none of it had happened? Could he bear it if she did?

He had his answer a second later when she dove forward and buried her head in his chest, choking out a sob. He brought his arms up to lock around her shoulders and hold her there.

“I thought,” she gasped, shoulders shaking. “I thought I was going to die. I didn’t think we’d ever... that I’d ever...”

“Shh, it’s okay, you’re okay,” he said softly, his chin resting on top of her head. She cried for another moment before pulling away and looking up at him.

“All of this just to keep me alive to further a bloody propaganda campaign,” she said angrily, shaking her head violently and wiping tears from beneath her eyes. “I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see the proof myself.”

“Did Theo and Blaise fill you in? Did you get your wand?”

She nodded, pulling the slim piece of vinewood from her pocket. He took a slow breath, still trying to make himself believe that she was no longer dying. 

“Why don’t you get cleaned up and then we can talk, yeah?”

Disinclined though he was to let her out of his sight again, he knew the clock was ticking and there were conversations that needed to be had.

She nodded again and stepped around him into the bedroom before crossing to the loo. Her eyes locked on him once more, seeming as reluctant as he was to be separated, before the door shut between them with a click.

Draco turned back to the hall and attempted to steady himself before descending the stairs.

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our story begins to to pick-up next chapter; check back for 13 on 11/6!
> 
> Much gratitude to my beta, TanzaniteWrites.


	13. No longer grey

> _Parting is all we know of heaven,_
> 
> _And all we need of hell._
> 
> _\- Emily Dickinson_

Hermione shut the bathroom door and leaned against the counter, her head swimming with an overwhelming mix of emotions and realisations from the last 30 minutes.

First and foremost, she was alive and no longer within the cell, something she hadn’t thought possible a week ago.

Next, and rather infuriatingly, someone was running around in her body, campaigning for the Ministry’s racist, discriminatory muggle-born registration act. When she got her hands on whoever was behind _that_ scheme, she might disregard magic all together and strangle them to death.

Finally, her most recent discovery, was that Draco was still Draco. When she had woken up on the sofa downstairs and been informed of their liberation, she had been filled with foreboding that things would have somehow changed, that their relationship would transform outside the confines of that small room. But when she saw him, cleaned up and freshly shaven, dressed in new clothes, it was as if nothing had changed at all. He was still her Draco – strong, warm arms, with eyes like the sky before a storm.

She had known in that moment that, come what may, he wasn’t something that she was willing to give up anymore. Whatever else this war took from her, whatever pain it caused, it would not take him. She simply wouldn’t allow it.

She thought briefly of their rescue in and of itself – of all the ways she had imagined leaving that place, surrounded by a pack of Slytherins was not even remotely on the list. The dynamic with Blaise and Theo intrigued her. They were clearly self-preserving, that much was clear, but the very fact that they had left whatever safe haven they were in to enter a warzone for their friend led her to believe there was a lot more to them than their house affiliation suggested.

Hermione stepped toward the shower and stripped off her jumper and trousers, resisting the urge to incinerate them and just vanishing the stale, stiff garments instead. She realized she was without a bra and would have to transfigure something on the bed in the other room.

She turned on the hot water and stepped under it, audibly sighing with relief. It was as if she were washing away months on the run, living out of a tent, in addition to her time spent in the cell. She lathered and rinsed her hair twice with an expensive looking shampoo that had a French label and smelled of honeysuckle. She briefly wondered if she couldn’t stay there indefinitely, hidden in the steam under a spray of magically replenishing hot water.

Finally, she sighed and turned it off, grabbing a gigantic, plush towel off a shelf on the wall and wrapping it around herself. Several strategically placed shaving and drying charms later, in addition to _finally_ brushing her teeth, she stepped back into the bedroom and assessed the clothing on the bed.

She selected a plain pair of black trousers and a collared blue shirt that she transfigured into something akin to workout clothing with a tight, built-in shelf under her chest. She also transformed a pair of men’s dress shoes into comfortable trainers and an extra sock into a hair elastic, plaiting her damp curls back, away from her face. Her magic was a bit rusty, but the spells would hold for a day or two.

She heard a knock at the door and, after she bid it open, Draco walked in, expression carefully schooled to one of indecipherable emotion – his ‘mask,’ as she referred to it in her head.

As she sat on the edge of the four-poster bed, the canopy draped in rich blue and green velvet, it occurred to her that here, outside the cell, things were no longer grey.

oOoOoOo

When Draco entered the room, his heart ached to look at her. Now, showered and carefully composed, she was almost unrecognizable against the woman he had shared a cell with for 30 days. A small part of him wished he could remove those memories from her mind, erase the pain and the doubt she had suffered, but a larger, and admittedly much more selfish part of him, wouldn’t even fathom giving up their time together. The time in which she had become Hermione to him. In which they had laughed and cried and found solace, however meagre, in one another’s arms.

He had just spoken to Theo and Blaise and learned that they hadn’t revealed to her why today, of all days, they had been set free. He wished he could lie to her, tell her it had simply been because his mother had known Bellatrix wasn’t going to be at home, but if he did that, if he lied to her now, she wouldn’t forgive him, and anything they had built, everything they had been through, would be negated.

His friends were ready to get out of Nott Manor, out of England all together, and he wanted nothing more than for her to come with them.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, to which her eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “I’m sorry it got so bad, that you nearly…”

“That’s not your fault Draco,” she said, shaking her head. “You are the reason, the only reason, that I’m alive right now. Give yourself some credit.”

She got up off the bed and crossed the room, taking his hand in hers. His eyes caught on the beginnings of a pale ‘M’ peeking out from beneath her sleeve and he reminded himself again that she was alive, that she was okay. Perhaps if he thought it enough, he would eventually believe it.

“Blaise said you had something to tell me,” she said, staring up at him with trust written across her face.

“I do,” he replied slowly, squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to escape her gaze. “But I need you to promise me that you’ll listen to everything I have to say, and that, when I’m done, you’ll consider your options – _all_ of your options, before you make any decisions.”

“I promise,” she said, beginning to pull away in uncertainty, “but you’re freaking me out a little.”

He sucked in a breath and jumped in with both feet.

“The Dark Lord is preparing to move on Hogwarts tonight,” he said. “According to my mother, Potter is headed there to make some sort of stand.”

Her eyes widened and he could tell she was breathing more quickly, but she kept her promise and he continued.

“His troops are assembling at the Manor now, my mother is with them but… she has her own motivations for being there, she has no intention of fighting. I’d assume the Order is gathering at the school as well.”

“I don’t understand what choice you were talking about me having,” she said carefully, and he felt his chest tighten, seeing her already beginning to pull away.

“Blaise and Theo have been staying in Italy at one of Blaise’s family estates. Right now, there is a portkey waiting for us in London to go back there. Hermione, I want you to come with us. Come with me. Please.”

She stared at him in disbelief, as if he had lost his mind, and she tugged her hand firmly from his grip. “I don’t know how you could… everyone I love, everyone I care about, is at that school right now.”

“Everyone?” he challenged.

She looked away quickly and crossed the room, sucking in a ragged breath before letting it out.

“If Harry is going to Hogwarts that means he’s destroyed the other horcrux. We knew there was probably one hidden there, it was always going to be the last one before Nagini and You-Know-Who himself. This could be it Draco, it could all end tonight.”

“Then let it end, Hermione!” he shouted, finally losing the tenuous grip he had on his composure. "Potter thinks you’re being held captive at the ministry, he doesn’t expect you to be there. Come with us, wait for things to play out and then, when the smoke clears, come back and set things right. You’ve done enough, given enough, you don’t need to be involved in this!”

“You know I can’t do that,” she said quietly, beginning to cry in earnest as she shook her head, “or you wouldn’t have asked me to consider my options before you told me. There isn’t any choice to make.”

“Please,” he broke down and pleaded, knowing it was for naught, “for once in your life, choose yourself, put your own wellbeing first.”

“Even one extra wand being there can mean lives, Draco. I don’t mean anything to you that the people there don’t mean to their friends, their families. Everyone has something on the line – my being underground for the past month doesn’t mean I can walk away from a fight I’ve been in the middle of since I was twelve.”

He crossed the room and roughly grabbed her face as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“If not for yourself, do it for me. After everything we’ve… stay for me. I didn’t save your bloody life just to watch you throw it away!”

Her eyelids dropped shut as tears fell and she gasped, her shoulders shaking.

She opened her mouth to speak again, but he seized the opportunity and kissed her. He poured into her everything he had, everything he was. All the pain, all the fear, all the regret. He kissed her like he was drowning and she was air. And she kissed him back, bringing her hand up and placing it under his jaw.

He dropped any pretense of control, losing himself in her and guiding her until the backs of her knees hit the bed, trying desperately to give her a reason to stay. She collapsed onto the mattress and he lowered his body onto hers, burying his face in her neck and dropping desperate kisses along her pulse point.

“You changed everything,” he said quietly, his voice tight.

“You’re a good man Draco,” she replied softly, running her fingers tenderly through the hair at his temple. “There was nothing to change.”

She pulled his mouth back up to hers and slid her tongue between his lips where it connected with his.

She tasted like Hermione. 

But she also tasted like good-bye.

He broke away and rested his forehead against hers, breathing heavily.

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered against his lips.

He pulled back to look into her warm, chestnut eyes, tears clinging to her dark lashes. And he didn’t see the wand being leveled at his chest.

oOoOoOo

Hermione slowly made her way back down the stairs after regaining some modicum of her equanimity. When Draco had fallen against her, stunned, she had carefully rolled him onto the bed beside her before totally breaking down, sobbing into his unconscious chest.

She tried not to think about what it meant, that it hurt this much to walk away from him… she couldn’t afford to enter into this battle with her heart and mind somewhere else. It was too risky. She used what diminutive occlumency skills she had to stuff him, and her feelings for him, carefully into a box in the back of her mind, to be revisited when the night was over. When she didn’t die.

He hadn’t actually expected her to go with him, it was clear from the moment he started talking, but she didn’t know how desperate he might be in his attempts to stop her, and right now Harry needed her more than Draco did.

She had meant what she’d vowed to herself earlier. She wouldn’t let this war take him from her – she just hoped her own betrayal didn’t do it instead.

As she hit the base of the stairs, she placed her hand on the railing and pulled in a steadying breath before rounding the corner to find Theo and Blaise standing next to the fireplace, conversing in hushed tones.

They quieted when they caught sight of her, and she swallowed hard before speaking.

“Wait… wait until I’m gone to revive him,” she said, voice hoarse. “And tell him I’m sorry.”

They had radically different reactions. Blaise’s eyes went wide in astonishment but quickly narrowed. He gave her a scathing look, huffing out a snort of disbelief, before wordlessly marching from the room and up the stairs.

Theo, on the other hand, didn’t look surprised at all, but he too remained silent. She clutched her wand tighter and fought the urge to cry again, to follow Blaise up the stairs and fall into Draco’s arms. If she did that, she knew she wouldn’t leave.

“When you go out the front doors, head left,” Theo said, making her blink in surprise. “Once you’re past the big beech tree you’ll be outside the wards and you can apparate. Best to stop halfway instead of going straight to Scotland in one go – I did it once and nearly passed out.” 

She nodded her thanks, throat too tight to speak. She turned to leave when he spoke again.

“And Granger? Try not to die, he’ll be impossible to live with if you do.”

She nodded again, a sad smile flashing quickly across her face at the unexpected kindness, before heading to the front door without looking back.

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Sorry. 
> 
> Next chapter will be up on 11/13, and TanzaniteWrites is still an absolutely fabulous beta. 
> 
> Unrelated: I know this has been an extremely harrowing week for a lot of people and I just want you all to know that you are valid, and you are loved.


	14. Into the fray

> _We are our choices._
> 
> _\- Jean-Paul Sartre_

Draco awoke to find Blaise leaning over him on the bed, wand gripped in his hand and his lips pressed into a tight line.

“She stunned me, didn’t she?” he asked groggily as he propped himself on to his elbows, already knowing the answer. Blaise nodded as he drew back. “Fucking hell… is she already gone?”

“I think so – I didn’t wait around.”

Theo appeared behind Blaise’s shoulder, a stoic expression on his face.

“We should get on with it,” he said, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms, “Milan awaits.”

Draco dropped back onto the mattress and stared up at the dark blue canopy. He squeezed his eyes shut and drew in a breath. Time for Plan B.

“I’m not going,” he said. The room went silent, he couldn’t even hear Blaise breathing next to him.

“Yeah,” Theo finally said with a sigh, “I thought that might be the case.”

“What the – I didn’t – what the hell are you talking about?!” Blaise exclaimed, outraged.

“He’s going after Granger,” Theo explained calmly. Draco wordlessly pointed at him in confirmation, keeping his eyes shut.

“No, no fucking way. I’ll stun you again myself if I have to,” Blaise said. “You aren’t running headlong into a firefight. Any Death Eater not hellbent on capturing Potter will be trying to kill you!”

“You’re right,” he replied, blinking his eyes open and sitting up again. “It’d be a lot less dangerous if I had someone there to watch my back…”

Blaise scoffed and stood up, crossing the room with his fists balled at his sides in anger. Theo, on the other hand, looked contemplative.

“My father is going to be there,” he said thoughtfully.

Draco nodded. “Mine too.”

“I suppose I do have a bit of a score to settle.”

“Couldn’t think of a better place for it, mate.”

Blaise spun and marched back toward them, fuming.

“Well _I_ don’t have any patricidal inclinations,” he growled, “where the hell does that leave me?”

“In Italy if you want,” Draco said, sitting up again and looking at him. “We aren’t going to drag you.”

Blaise looked murderous about how quickly the situation had changed. He started toward the door and Theo stepped into the room and out of his way as Blaise walked out, stomping down the hallway until his footsteps faded.

The remaining boys stared at each other. Draco opened his mouth to speak but Theo quieted him and held up a finger. A second later footsteps could be heard approaching again, growing louder before Blaise burst back into the room.

“If I die,” he said, voice low and dangerous, “I _will_ come back and haunt you, Draco. I swear to Circe, you won’t have five minutes of peace to wank for the rest of your sad, privileged life.”

Theo smirked and started bouncing on the balls of his feet while Draco looked up at his friend with eyebrows raised and mouth slightly agape. Blaise huffed in annoyance and shook his head before stepping closer and extending a hand to pull him to his feet. The three boys stood in a triangle, looking at one another.

“Oh Merlin…” Blaise said, shaking his head. “Is this what Potter feels like all the time? No wonder he’s such a prat, it’s exhausting.”

Theo barked out a laugh before taking point as they left the room and descended the stairs.

“We should raid the potion stores in the basement again before we leave,” he said over his shoulders. “Blood replenisher, dittany, murtlap, wiggenweld, burn paste…”

They made their way through the kitchen and into the dark, dank cellar, turning into a side room lined with shelves of both potion ingredients and already full vials. They magically expanded their pockets and began sorting through and grabbing anything that looked like it might be useful, casting unbreakable charms on the bottles before dropping them in.

“This is absolutely barmy,” Blaise muttered under his breath. “Running into a battlefield with a turncoat and a deserter… I’m going to get myself bloody killed…

Having eventually razed everything they could, the trio trooped back up the stairs, through the kitchen and out the front doors into darkness.

oOoOoOo

Hermione arrived in Hogsmeade with a pop, stumbling a little and pushing down a wave of nausea. She was glad she had listened to Theo – if she had tried to apparate directly from Brighton she was sure she would have either fainted or splinched herself.

She looked around to find the village deserted.

“Wait, Aberforth, we have another one,” she heard someone call over her shoulder. She spun around to see the Hog’s Head in the distance, a body hanging out the front door with their head turned to look inside. She drew her wand and approached slowly.

“It’s…” he turned to look at her and she saw it was Seamus Finnigan. “Merlin’s beard, it’s Hermione!”

“Seamus!” she shouted, running forward and wrapping him in a hug. He wavered for a second before squeezing her quickly and then pushing her back by the shoulders.

“Wait, what did I do to the feather in our very first charms class at Hogwarts?”

“You lit it on fire – the same thing you did in nearly every class that year. That’s a fairly poor security question Seamus, anyone that’s met you could guess the answer.”

“Gallopin’ gargoyles, it really is you!” he exclaimed, this time hugging her tightly and eliciting a breathless squeak.

An old man appeared behind his shoulder and Hermione had to bite back a yelp. He looked exactly like Albus Dumbledore, but his hair was grey instead of white and his beard was a much more reasonable length. Her mind went back to Seamus referring to him as Aberforth and she concluded that this must be the brother she had read about in Skeeter’s vile book, but she bit her lip. Now was not the time.

“Can we get on with it?” he grumbled, in a distinctly un-Dumbledore fashion. “My pub has already seen more people than King’s Cross tonight.”

“Yeah,” Seamus responded, pulling away from Hermione and turning back toward the door. “Everyone else is already inside reinforcing the wards and getting ready. He isn’t here yet though.”

She nodded, trying to steady herself. She didn’t need to ask who “He” was. They entered the pub and she followed him back behind the bar, stepping into a room she had never been in before. It was sparsely furnished, which was not of note, but there was a giant open passageway on one of the walls that led downward into darkness.

Seamus turned back to Aberforth. “If anyone else comes through-“

“I’ll be telling them to sod off,” he finished, shooting daggers at the boy.

Seamus raised his hands in surrender and tipped his head toward the passage, indicating Hermione should follow him.

“Lumos,” they muttered simultaneously, wand tips lighting as they descended into the tunnel.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked as they made their way along. “We saw the Prophet and thought…”

“It’s a bit of a long story, but the short version is that that wasn’t me. I’ve been locked up for the past month, someone was impersonating me with Polyjuice.”

“Locked up… Everyone thought you were dead until that picture cropped up in the paper last week.”

“Whoever’s been running around in my skin is going to be dead when I get my hands on them…” she muttered.

The passageway was starting to slowly incline upward.

They finally emerged in a cavernous room Hermione had never seen before. There were hammocks and cots pushed to the side against the walls, and different house colors draped from the ceiling overhead.

“Where are we?” she asked in wonder, turning to survey the gigantic chamber.

“Room of requirement,” Seamus replied with a cheeky grin. “It really does give you whatever you need.”

Suddenly a red-headed blur tackled her to the ground.

“What did I say to you in my fifth year after I broke up with Dean?”

Hermione blinked rapidly and tried to breathe around the weight on her chest. Ginny Weasley was pushing a knee into her diaphragm and she felt a wand jabbed against the side of her throat.

“Ginny, I already-“ she heard Seamus try to explain weakly from off to the side, but Ginny viciously shushed him.

“You said he wasn’t a bad guy,” Hermione wheezed, “he just wasn’t the right guy. You were talking about Harry.”

Ginny sat back on Hermione’s thighs, straddling her, and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob.

“We thought you were…” she started, voice shaking.

“Yeah, Seamus said,” Hermione explained, rubbing her neck. “If everyone on our side reacts like this when they see me, I’m not going to last five minutes when the real fighting begins.”

Ginny grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into an awkward hug, red ponytail batting her in the face. She finally climbed off and helped Hermione to her feet.

“Where’s Harry?” Hermione asked, once again trying to get her bearings.

“After he came through with Ron they ran off with Luna,” Ginny explained. “They were looking for something.”

Hermione processed this. If they had gone off with Luna they must be trying to find the Ravenclaw horcrux.

“Which way?” she asked, crossing the room quickly to a door hanging open into the hallway.

Ginny pointed left and Hermione started running without a backward glance. She took the stairs in the general direction of Ravenclaw tower but didn’t see her friends anywhere. All around her she heard bits and pieces of exclamations as she darted past, people recognizing her, but she didn’t have time for it.

She rounded a corner and stuttered to a stop. In front of her, Professor McGonagall was levitating two bodies swathed in black cloaks and bound together down a corridor and shouting instructions at those around her. Hermione had seen a lot of wonderful and terrifying things in her time in the magical world, but her eyes widened in shock at the battle-hard glint in the elderly witch’s eye.

“Pomona, find Longbottom and head to the greenhouses, grab anything that might be of use,” she shouted over the general din echoing throughout the castle. “Fillius, Charlie Weasley is around here somewhere, tell him- “

She came up short when she saw Hermione.

“Please don’t attack me,” Hermione spit out quickly and raised her hands. “Ginny and Seamus already checked. I’m me, I promise.”

“Miss Granger, what are you – never mind,” McGonagall said quickly. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Please, I need to find Harry,” she pleaded.

“Mr. Potter is just fine, Mr. Weasley and Kingsley are with him, they think they have a lead on the last horcrux. I could really use your wand working on wards and closing off entrances into the castle.”

Hermione blinked in shock at the casual reference to the horcruxes before her shoulders sagged in relief, releasing a tension she hadn’t known she’d been saddled with. Harry had told The Order what they had been doing, he had gotten help.

She was fighting back the urge to shout at the witch in front of her when she heard Draco’s voice echoing in her head. _Potter thinks you’re being held captive at the ministry, he doesn’t expect you to be there._

If she distracted Harry now… she pulled in a slow breath and let it out.

“Where do you need me?”

oOoOoOo

Hermione was down near one of the side entrances to the castle, sitting cross-legged on the grass overlooking the Black Lake and facing the school. It was much quieter down here, the voices and clattering within barely audible.

“Custodius revelare,” she whispered, almost dropping the spell in shock at the sheer number of wards she sensed around her. There were more behind her, general shields and barriers wrapping about the grounds, but she could see spells actively being added around the structure itself.

McGonagall had said Bill was working on the wards too, on the other side of the school; he was intimately familiar with all sorts of protections from his work as a curse-breaker.

Hermione was no expert, certainly nowhere near his level of skill, but she was much more advanced than most witches and wizards her age, or any age really, having learned all she could in the time spent preparing to go on the run with Harry and Ron. And, more than that, it got her out of the castle where Harry could see her. After her conversation with McGonagall, she’d determined that was something that they couldn’t afford right now. Voldemort was presumably on his way to the school, Death Eaters and all manner of dark creatures in tow, and every second mattered.

She tried to calm the chaos thrumming in her mind and slowly raised her wand, beginning to weave her own magic into the ancient protections. It would buy them minutes at most, but in a battle like the one they were facing, minutes could change everything.

She was shaken from her concentration a short time later when a cold voice echoed out across the grounds.

_"I know that you are preparing to fight. Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood. Give me Harry Potter, and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded. You have until midnight."_

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Even one extra wand being there can mean lives… in a battle like the one they were facing, minutes could change everything.” 
> 
> Something I want everyone to bear in mind as we get into the thick of things: I'm not going for a full-on butterfly effect canon-divergence, it's just not that kind of story. It's more of a broad-strokes 'what if' scenario, savvy? 
> 
> TanzaniteWrites rocks, next chapter will be up on 11/20.


	15. Chao and spellfire

> _A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win it._
> 
> _\- Leo Tolstoy_

Despite the great wanker saying they wouldn’t attack until midnight, she sensed a volley of spells begin attempting to break down the outer wards moments after the voice ceased.

She threw up a quick tempus charm; 11:38. She stayed seated a few more minutes, casting faster than she had been before, weaving and knitting any and all protections she could think of around the castle before growling with frustration and getting to her feet.

She ran back through the side doorway she had earlier exited from and tossed a _bombarda_ at the stone, caving it in behind her before transfiguring the chunks of rock into a solid wall. It wouldn’t hold long, but it would delay them briefly.

She took off down the corridor, ascending a flight of stairs back into the main castle.

She spotted McGonagall across the Great Hall. The elderly witch had just animated the suits of armor all through the building and was bracing herself against a wall, breathing hard from the exertion and complex nature of the spell. Flitwick’s short frame stood next to her with a hand on her arm, wand drawn at his side and nearly brushing the ground.

Hermione turned and took at the faces around her, a mixture of The Order, the DA, and older Hogwarts students – some she recognized, others she didn’t. While she was sure there were loads of other people throughout the castle, maintaining different fronts, many of their strongest duelists were assembled near the main entrance.

Word must have spread through Ginny, Seamus and McGonagall, because, while she got some nods, nobody questioned how she was there or whether she was herself.

Seamus and Dean were in one corner with Ernie MacMillan, heads low and speaking quickly to one another. Luna, with a dreamy look in her eye, stood next to Ginny near the middle of the hall, who was in turn flanked by Charlie and Bill. She saw Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell, and Angelina Johnson running toward the stairs holding brooms and carrying satchels full of what looked like spiked metal orbs about the size of grapefruits. 

Hermione turned and spotted Tonks’ pink head entering through one of the side passages. She had apparently had the baby, her stomach flat, and Hermione felt her heart catch in her throat. She was not about to allow another child to be orphaned by this bloody war; Remus and Tonks had already been through too much. She sped to her side.

“Wotcher ‘Mione,” Tonks said, a grin pulling up one side of her face as she quickly hugged the younger witch. Her eyes sparkled with a mischievous glint, years of training having prepared her for this fight. “Minerva said you were wandering around here somewhere.”

“Tonks,” Hermione breathed, “you shouldn’t be here, the baby-“

“Is safe with my mother,” she finished for her, voice kind but firm. “I’m needed here.”

She was about to protest anyway when she saw McGonagall, now straightened and striding toward the middle of the hall, cast an enlarged tempus charm. It flashed 12:00 and the room went dead silent.

“Prepare yourselves,” she said, projecting her voice with a sonorous charm. “Potter is working on something that will hopefully bring the fight to an end sooner rather than later, but we need to buy him as much time as we can. If you can’t cast to kill, at least take them out of the fight – they will be doing far worse, I assure you. Move the wounded out of the way if possible, Poppy and her team will retrieve them. Hold the line, and Merlin be with us all.”

She removed the wand from her throat and turned back to the doors, Flitwick on one side and Septima Vector on the other, who appeared to be garbed in some sort of dragon-hide armor and was holding a wand in each hand. Hermione silently vowed to get the story behind that later.

The air was practically crackling with nervous energy when, all of a sudden, a tremendous crashing sound could be heard just outside, and the stones beneath her feet started to shake. They had made it through the outer wards and were now attempting to work their way into the castle.

Tonks squeezed her hand lightly before releasing it as they readied themselves for war.

oOoOoOo

“Well this complicates things,” Theo said, poking his head around a tree near the edge of the forbidden forest, just outside the boundaries of the school grounds. Lined up near the main gates were droves of Death Eaters, casting spell after spell at the wards encircling the castle. The three boys had apparated into the trees several hundred meters from their current position just in time to hear the end of Voldemort’s missive.

Draco nodded in agreement, also looking out at the crowd of people.

“We’ll wait until they break through the outer wards and then disillusion ourselves and head along the forest to the side of the school,” Blaise directed from behind them; he had already taken stock of the situation and was instead examining his fingernails. Both boys turned to look at him with identical expressions of shock, at which Blaise scoffed. “If we go running through them, we’ll be murdered faster than you can say ‘stop, don’t shoot.’”

“That’s… not a bad idea,” Draco agreed after thinking about it for a moment. The main gates connected to a section of fence that extended toward them, but it cut off not far into the forest, more for show than actual protection. The real barriers to entering the school were magical in nature, and they weren’t going to be a problem for much longer. 

They stood silently and watched as the hooded figures sliced and bombarded the protective spells. And then all at once, they were through and started rushing up to the main doors.

“Now,” Draco whispered, and each boy tapped themselves on the head with their wands, disappearing with a shimmer. They couldn’t cast while maintaining the disillusionment, but they didn’t need to yet.

They went tearing through the edge of the forest and into the grounds, ducking branches and jumping over roots and rocks, which was made more difficult by their inability to see their own feet. They had just passed behind Hagrid’s hut and started up the path to the school when they heard the Death Eaters beginning to bombard the wards around the castle itself.

The assemblage disappeared from sight as they rounded one of the stone corners of the towering edifice, before bouncing off an invisible barrier perhaps 10 meters from the building. Blaise swore under his breath.

“Okay, now what?” Theo asked, breathing hard and still invisible.

“We wait for them to get through these too,” Draco responded, lacking anything more sophisticated.

The boys moved in a circuit around the outer edge of the building, away from the front entrance, before stopping near one of the side passages that led through the dungeons and into the main school. It had been caved in, but Draco figured they could get through the rubble quickly enough between the three of them.

The real challenge was going to be not getting killed on sight by those within the castle.

“We need to stay invisible as long as possible,” he said to Theo and Blaise. “Most of the people in there are going to want us dead just as much as the Dark Lord’s followers will.”

“Right,” Blaise said, his voice firm. Then he asked, in a much less assured tone, “Why are we doing this again?”

“Because Draco picked an absolutely terrible time to grow a conscience,” Theo quipped, a hint of admonishment in his voice.

They were standing in the pitch black, impossible to see unless you were looking for them, when three figures flew overhead on brooms toward the Death Eaters. Several screams pierced the night a moment later.

“What do you suppose that’s about?” Blaise asked over the din.

Before anyone had a chance to answer, the remaining wards dropped, and they immediately started blasting and shifting the rocks blocking the passageway into the school. The fight had started.

oOoOoOo

“Like it hot, scum?” Crabbe growled within the room of hidden things, facing off with Goyle against Kingsley, Harry and Ron. A jet of fire erupted from his wand, and Kingsley shoved Harry and Ron behind him.

“It’s fiendfyre,” he yelled at the two younger wizards, “Get to the diadem!”

Kingsley, having been trained to contain fiendfyre during his work as an auror, started casting a barrier around the inferno. A flame in the shape of a chimera tried to leap toward them, only to be batted away by a jet of blue light. Harry scrambled up the pile of misplaced rubbish to his left and plucked the diadem off a bust wearing a wig.

“I got it!” he yelled, looking up to see Ron dueling with Goyle as Kingsley continued to fight to keep the fire at bay. Crabbe had disappeared, engulfed with his wand shortly after the spell had been cast.

“Throw it in!” the auror shouted, and Harry flung the diadem into the magical blaze where it exploded with a terrible screaming sound.

Ron finally got the best of Goyle, freezing and binding him before giving him a swift kick in the ribs for good measure. Sweat dripping from his brow, Kingsley no longer fought to contain the flames, but began to extinguish them. Slowly but surely the leaping shapes within diminished before being put out altogether with a final screech and a sizzle.

The room was dark and quiet again, and all three were panting and covered head to toe in soot and ash from the objects that had perished. Kingsley was bent double and bracing his hands on his knees.

“I’d have liked to have seen how you boys got out of that one,” he said with a breathless laugh. Harry, wide-eyed, simply nodded.

oOoOoOo

“Get down!!” Tonks screamed, rolling to the ground with Hermione in tow as a slicing hex whizzed over their heads. The minute the wards dropped the Death Eaters had blasted open the front doors and swarmed the Great Hall, at which point utter mayhem had ensued.

Swathes of Hogwarts ghosts emerged from the walls on all sides near the entrance and surrounded them, limiting visibility and eliciting shouts of confusion as an eerie cold washed over the crowd. They threw spells out haphazardly, but they were sloppy and the few that did make it through rebounded off of shields. Those assembled in wait took advantage, hexing and cursing rapidly while their enemies were still disoriented.

The remaining Death Eaters eventually stumbled over their fallen brethren, several of which lay dead or dismembered. Then Bellatrix emerged from the fray, crazed look in her eye and blood-thirsty smile on her face. She wordlessly whipped a tremendous gust of air through the hall, carrying the ghosts away from the two groups.

Hermione looked up from her prone position on the ground and cursed the fact that somehow, _once again_ , she was on the floor in front of the craziest witch in Britain. She resisted the urge to rub her arm, which was stinging and itching with phantom pain.

Tonks jumped to her feet and stepped in front of Hermione, facing off with the deranged sadist.

“Auntie Bella,” she taunted with a vicious grin, hair transitioning from pink to a flaming red that almost appeared to flicker. For the briefest of seconds, it was obvious that they were related. “How nice of you to join us.”

Bellatrix caught sight of her disowned niece and her eyes bugged out.

“You dare – you half-breed SCUM!” she shrieked at Tonks, spit flying from her mouth as she threw what Hermione recognized as an entrail-expelling curse toward her.

Tonks skillfully deflected it and quickly responded with a blood-boiling hex. Long past were the days of jelly-leg jinxes.

Forgotten, Hermione pulled herself upright and threw three rapid stunners at a Death Eater she didn’t recognise, who was attempting to approach from the side and head down one of the passages into the castle proper. He dodged the first two, but the third struck him in the left shoulder and he crumpled to the ground. Hermione heard McGonagall’s voice echoing in her head: _Cast to kill_.

She raised her wand but couldn’t do it, instead opting to vanish the bones from the wizard’s legs, something she thought of ruefully as ‘The Lockhart Special.’ It wasn’t lethal, but even if they retrieved and revived him, he was out of the fight.

A killing curse flew past her left shoulder, perhaps ten centimetres away, and hit a suit of armour that had its sword raised, exploding the breast-plate.

Hermione felt a small piece of shrapnel imbed in her cheek, but she stuffed the pain down and ignored it, turning back to assess where she was needed.

McGonagall and Flitwick were back to back across the hall, viciously dueling Avery and Dolohov respectively. Just as McGonagall looked as if she were losing the upper hand, Hermione readying herself to jump in and help, a giant, jagged spire of stone erupted from the ground behind Avery and gored him through the chest. The elderly witch took in his corpse for a moment with a look of grim satisfaction before turning to assist her colleague, who was currently enveloping Dolohov in a miniature blizzard.

To her right, Ginny had just thrown a nasty bat-bogey hex at someone Hermione vaguely recognized as Jugson, who screamed and attempted to claw at the giant mucusy forms erupting from his face. Charlie followed behind her and stunned and bound the man before the pair turned to find their next victim. Clearly no assistance was needed there.

Just then, Hermione heard a cry and, in the middle of the hall, partially obscured by an overturned bench, Tonks stumbled to the ground and hit her head, and Bellatrix moved in, towering over her.

“Avada -“

“SECTUMSEMPRA!” Hermione screamed without thinking, something it would occur to her later was rather ironic considering the hell she’d given Harry for once doing the same thing.

The spell hit Bellatrix in the side and a look of shock crossed her face as she fell, blood already blooming in deep gashes across her chest.

“You,” she choked out, eyes bulging at the sight of Hermione standing over her, wild curls having escaped her plait and blood dripping down her face.

There was an explosion behind her, and Hermione whipped around to see Seamus attempting to shift part of a collapsed wall off of Ernie while Dean faced off with someone that had their back to her.

Returning to her senses, she turned to where Bellatrix had been laying to find her gone, a pool of blood in her place. Hermione looked around frantically before her eyes finally locked on Rodolphus Lestrange, who was levitating his wife out the front doors. She started to run after them until she remembered Tonks on the ground to her left and jerked to a halt, cursing under her breath before returning to the fallen witch’s side and dropping to her knees. She was unconscious and had a deep gash across her forehead, but she was breathing. She briefly considered rennervating her, but it could be dangerous if the head wound were more than superficial. 

Hermione looked around the hall to see that the initial front had dispersed. There were still several duels happening around her, but the majority of the crowd had filtered either further into the building or back out onto the grounds.

She scanned, trying to find a safe place to move Tonks until Madam Pomfrey could treat her, when a voice spoke near her ear.

“Need a hand, Granger?”

She looked up, bewildered to see Theodore Nott standing over her.

oOoOoOo

“Where in the hell are we going?!” Blaise yelled at Draco, who had taken off down a random corridor once they were past the rubble.

“Seventh floor!” Draco shouted over his shoulder, leading Blaise up yet another flight of stairs. His plan was to start his search for Hermione at the top and work his way down. They were still disillusioned, but there was so much shouting and spellfire throughout the castle, their voices were lost in the din.

Theo had quickly split off toward the Great Hall, where the Death Eaters were pouring in, to search for his father. The boys rounded a corner to see Rookwood and Thicknesse heading down a corridor toward two red-headed figures – certainly Weasleys, but there was too much dust in the air and they were too far away to tell which ones.

Draco initially kept running before skidding to a halt, Blaise running full-tilt into his back.

“What are you doing?” he hissed, stumbling.

“Something I’m certain I’ll end up regretting,” Draco growled, both frustrated and resigned to the direction of his recently discovered moral compass. He walked back several paces and began to approach from behind, just in time to see Rookwood raising his wand. Draco dropped his disillusionment, now fully visible, and shouted, “ _Diffindo_!”

Gory though it was, his slicing hex hit Rookwood in the middle of his right bicep, both his wand and his severed arm falling to the ground. He screamed in shock and stumbled, a spray of blood flaring across the stone floor, and Thicknesse whirled around to see where the spell had come from. Before either man could react further, the two gingers sped down the passage, stunning and binding the pair.

Draco recast his disillusionment quickly and took off again with Blaise on his heels.

“Was that-?” Percy started, breathing heavily and gesturing in the general direction that Malfoy had run.

“No, couldn’t have been,” Fred replied, shaking his head.

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Wait, you can't save everyone!"
> 
> Lol, bet. 
> 
> Next chapter 11/27, everyone have a safe, Happy Thanksgiving!
> 
> Thank you to TanzaniteWrites, my kick-ass beta.


	16. Reluctant mending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains excerpts from The Deathly Hallows.

“They’re all yours Remus, Minerva needs me on the front lines,” Kingsley said, handing off Ron and Harry to their former professor on the third-floor landing.

“Alright boys, where are we headed?” Remus asked as Kingsley sprinted away, noting that they were both covered in soot and Harry was clutching his scar.

“The diadem is destroyed,” Harry said in a pained voice. “That just leaves Voldemort and the snake. I checked his head, they’re in the Shrieking Shack.”

Remus sighed and wiped a hand across his forehead. “Of course they are… I swear, when this is all over, I’m burning that bloody building to the ground.”

The trio turned and headed down the staircase. They ran past the great hall and out the front doors, not seeing, behind an overturned bench, two figures bent and passing potions back and forth over an unconscious witch with flaming red hair and a gash on her forehead. 

They skirted the edge of the building and headed toward the Whomping Willow, watching as several Order fighters cast patronuses to drive away a swarm of dementors approaching over the grounds in the distance.

Ron quickly levitated a stick, directing it to a root near the base of the tree, thus freezing it’s thrashing limbs upon impact. Remus cast silencing charms on their feet and they raced forward, dropping into a dirt tunnel.

As they approached, soft voices could be heard coming from within the shack. The three men bent low to peer through the wooden slats.

“Why doesn’t it work for me Severus?” inquired a cold, hissing voice.

“You have performed extraordinary magic with this wand My Lord, in the last few hours alone,” Snape placated.

“No – no, I am extraordinary, but the wand resists me.”

“Tonight, when the boy comes, it will not fail you. I am sure of it. It answers to you, and you alone.”

“Does it?”

“My lord?”

“The wand, does it truly answer to me? You’re a clever man Severus, surely you must know. Where does it’s true loyalty lie?”

“With you, of course, My Lord.”

“The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who defeated its last owner… you killed Dumbledore, Severus. While you live, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine. You’ve been a good and faithful servant, but only I can live forever.”

“My lord –“

“Nagini, _kill_.”

The snake struck at Snape and Harry had to bite his tongue in order not to yell out. He felt Remus clamp a tight hand on his shoulder. A second later Voldemort apparated away with Nagini and Harry, Ron and Remus barreled forward from their hiding place, Harry reaching Snape first.

Snape gripped his wand and held a shaking hand up to his temple, blood pouring from a jagged lesion on his neck.

“Take them,” he gasped, drawing out silvery strands of memories. Ron conjured a vial and handed it to Harry.

“No, you don’t get to die, you great greasy git, you’re going to answer for what you’ve done,” Remus snarled, setting to work attempting to heal Snape. While Nagini’s bites were venomous, as long as Snape didn’t bleed out, he could be kept alive long enough to receive an antidote – much like Arthur had two years prior.

“Harry, take the memories. Vulnera sanentur, vulnera sanentur, vulnera sanentur…” Remus began to chant, weaving his wand in a complicated motion over Snape’s gaping throat.

Harry funneled the memories into the vial Ron had handed him and sat back on his heels to watch, speechless. While not trained as a healer, Remus had decades of experience mending himself after violent monthly transformations, not to mention patching up his fellow marauders in their youth. The fact that Snape was the one receiving such treatment was the more shocking part of the scene playing out in front of him.

Once a good amount of the blood had retreated back into Severus’ wounds, Remus muttered “ferula” and clean bandages appeared and wrapped tight over the gashes.

Snape reached a shaking hand into a pocket in his cloaks and extracted a tiny dark green vial, which Remus promptly snatched from his grip.

“You paranoid son of a bitch…” he muttered in disbelief, realising what it was. He uncapped it and poured it down the former Potions Master’s throat.

As the antivenom worked, a little colour visibly returned to Snape’s gaunt cheeks and his breathing evened out.

“Is he going to live?” Ron asked, sounding as if he weren’t sure what answer he was hoping for.

“Yes, he’s going to be fine,” Remus said in disgust, not sure if that was the answer he had been wanting to give. Snape’s eyes slipped shut a second later as he lost consciousness.

“Do we just leave him here?” Harry asked uncertainly, clutching the vial of memories.

“Not quite,” Remus replied, “incarcerous.”

Ropes leapt forward from the tip of his wand and wrapped securely around Snape’s supine form.

“Now we leave him,” Remus said, plucking Snape’s wand from his hand and pocketing it. “We’ll collect him when this is all over.”

The trio turned and marched back through the tunnel.

oOoOoOo

“What are you doing here?!” Hermione asked in shock, leaping to her feet and briefly throwing her arms around Theo, thoroughly surprising both of them.

“Draco decided he wanted to try his hand at heroics,” Theo explained, blushing slightly at the embrace.

“Draco?” Hermione asked as she pulled back, eyes wide. “Draco is _here_?”

Theo nodded. “Perhaps we fix her up and then talk about it, yeah?” He gestured at Tonks on the ground.

Hermione was a bit embarrassed to admit she had forgotten about the witch for a moment.

“We need to get her somewhere safe until Madam Pomfrey can tend to her.”

“Nonsense, what does she need?” Theo waved her aside as he began extracting an arsenal of potions from his pockets.

Hermione gaped for a moment before rattling off, “A bit of dittany on the cut and wiggenweld to mend any internal damage. Ordinarily I would say a sleeping potion, but given the circumstances…”

Theo knelt down and handed the requested vials to Hermione.

“What is Draco doing here, does he have a death wish?” Hermione asked tensely while dripping the essence of dittany over Tonks’ forehead. “Unlike the rest of us, literally _every_ person in this building wants him dead.”

“Too true – frankly I’m surprised _I_ haven’t been hexed yet,” Theo said contemplatively, as he glanced around the now nearly empty room, as if he were expecting someone to jump forward and start firing spells at him. “I think it’s the hair, not as recognizable.”

Hermione spared him a dark glance before opening the second vial.

“Which way did he go?” she inquired. If Draco were here, did that mean that he… No, she couldn’t think about that now.

“He and Blaise ran up the stairs as soon as we got in, I split off to look for my father,” he explained. “Speaking of which, you haven’t seen him, have you? Yay high, looks like me but older? Total arsehole?”

He waved his wand across his face, briefly glamouring it to look older, more similar to his father’s, before dropping the charm.

“Well that certainly narrows it down… No, but I’ll keep an eye out. Here, do you have two galleons?” 

“This is a peculiar time to ask for a loan, Granger…”

She rolled her eyes and snatched the coins from his hand. Taking a deep breath, she concentrated and cast a charm on the pair.

“Here,” she said, handing one of them back. “If you see Draco, tap this with your wand and say the location. It’ll be inscribed on yours as well as mine. I’ll do the same if I happen across your father.”

“Protean charm?” he asked, to which she nodded. “Brilliant. You know, you have terrible taste in men, but it seems they’re onto something about you being intelligent.”

Hermione saw Madam Pomfrey making the rounds with Hannah Abbott behind her and flagged them down. After handing off Tonks’ still-unconscious form and explaining what they had done, she turned to Theo.

“I’m going to look for him,” she said as the metamorphmagus was levitated away. 

“Oh, wait just a second,” he said, pulling the dittany from the pocket of his robes again. He reached over and swiftly plucked the small piece of jagged shrapnel from her cheek without warning.

“Fuck,” she gasped at the unexpected stab of pain.

“Just a bit of dittany…” he tipped her chin to the side and dropped the potion over the cut, watching as the skin knitted back together.

“You could have warned me,” she muttered sullenly, to which he shrugged.

They got to their feet, Theo slipping the vial back into his pocket, and paused for a moment, staring at one another in the middle of the rubble.

“Try not to die,” she said, with a small smirk. “He’ll be impossible to live with if you do.”

“Likewise,” Theo nodded, one corner of his mouth pulling upward slightly.

It felt like hours had passed and Hermione had barely made it to the second floor landing, forced to stop every ten metres or so to assist in a duel or check someone that lay wounded on the ground, when a frigid voice washed across the campus once more.

_“You have fought valiantly, but in vain. I do not wish this. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a terrible waste. I therefore command my forces to retreat. In their absence, dispose of your dead with dignity. Harry Potter, I now speak directly to you. On this night, you have allowed your friends to die for you, rather than face me yourself. There is no greater dishonor. Join me in the Forbidden Forest and confront your fate. If you do not do this, I shall kill every last man, woman and child who tries to conceal you from me.”_

oOoOoOo

Remus, Ron and Harry were making their way back up to the school from the Whomping Willow when they heard Voldemort’s message.

“Don’t even think about it, Harry,” Remus said when the voice quieted. “You’re not running off to get yourself killed, we’re too close to finishing this.”

Harry didn’t look convinced, but he nodded, and they continued walking. Remus tried to make himself believe Harry wasn’t going to race away to die a martyr, that he wouldn’t allow it, but the thought dropped off sharply when they entered the great hall and he caught sight of Tonks lying on the ground next to several other broken and bleeding people in various states of cognisance.

“Dora!” he cried, quickly closing the distance between them and dropping to his knees. “What happened?!”

“Just a small head wound Remus,” Madam Pomfrey said from several feet away as she liberally applied burn paste to the side of Lee Jordan’s face. “She’s already been treated.”

Remus, looking dismayed, merely took her hand and settled more firmly at her side.

Ron caught sight of a dozen or so bodies in a different corner of the hall, laid out side by side. He recognized Colin Creevey, Cho Chang and Hestia Jones, among others. While he was briefly flooded with relief that none of the corpses had red hair, he almost immediately felt guilty about it. Dennis Creevey sat next to Colin and clutched his hand, his eyes blank and staring forward, seemingly catatonic. These people may not be his family, but they were still somebody’s family.

He saw his mum bustling about nearby and crossed the hall to join the clump of gingers huddled around a propped-up Percy. His sleeve had been removed and his left arm was mottled with jagged red and purple lines.

“What happened?” Ron asked weakly.

“Some kind of stinging hex,” Percy grunted between clenched teeth, clearly still in pain. The twins looked solemn for once, standing together near his feet. Charlie had his arm around Ginny, who was crying softly and shaking, and Bill stood nearby speaking in hushed tones with Flitwick.

Nobody noticed Harry slipping away toward Dumbledore’s office.

oOoOoOo

“Where’s Harry?” Hermione demanded upon reentering the Great Hall and spotting the Weasleys. Ron looked up and his mouth dropped open in surprise at the sight of her, clearly not having received the memo that she was there. When Voldemort’s second broadcast echoed across the grounds, she had abandoned her search for Draco, silently praying that he was alright, and ran back downstairs in search of Harry instead, terrified he was going to do something stupid.

“’Mione?” Ron finally managed to ask, voice slightly strangled. She nodded and waved her hand, as if she could physically push his shock aside to be dealt with at a later time.

“ _Where is Harry_?” she asked again in a sharper tone.

“I don’t –“ Ron said, glancing toward the front doors, “he was here a few minutes ago, he was right behind us.”

Remus, having overheard the conversation, swore loudly.

“Bloody hell,” Hermione muttered, grinding the heels of her hands into her eye sockets in frustration. “He’s going to the forest.”

“No, no, Harry wouldn’t…” Ron started, before looking around the hall at the dead and injured and trailing off. He made eye contact with Hermione and silent understanding passed between them. Yes, he would. He absolutely would.

“We need to find him,” Hermione finally said to those nearby. “Split up and start searching.”

“Wait, I know where he’s headed,” Remus stopped her. “He needed to find a pensieve.”

“The headmaster’s office,” Hermione exclaimed, realisation dawning on her. She took off with Ron, Remus and Ginny on her heels. They ran past the gargoyle at the base of the spiral staircase, blasted to the side with chunks missing.

When she burst into the office she was dismayed to find it empty. The pensieve was in the middle of the desk and Harry’s mokeskin pouch was next to it, but there was no sign of its owner.

“Harry, no,” she cried in disappointment, hearing Ginny start to sob loudly behind her.

oOoOoOo

“I’m heading down to the dungeons,” Blaise announced. He and Draco had ducked into an alcove on the fifth floor and dropped their disillusionments when the fighting had ceased. “I heard someone mention that the Slytherins are holed up down there and I want to make sure Pansy is okay.”

Draco made a disgruntled sound but nodded. While his friendship with Pansy had sputtered out and died around fifth year, she and Blaise were still close. Like many female purebloods, disregarded because they couldn’t pass on the family name, she had a rough home life and Blaise had done his best over the years to give her someone to lean on.

“I’m going to keep looking for Hermione,” Draco responded resolutely, cursing that the school was as big as it was. There was a good chance they had already passed each other with the sheer number of side staircases and passageways between floors. Blaise nodded and clapped him on the shoulder before heading toward the stairs.

Draco briefly took a moment to center himself. He hadn’t been able to find her during the first wave, and he hadn’t seen either of his parents either. He searched the upper floors hoping she would be farther from the action, but he realised as we went that that had probably been wishful thinking. His life simply wasn’t that easy.

With his luck, she had been on the front lines when the invasion started. He tried not to consider the possibility that she hadn’t made it. 

With a frustrated sigh he resumed his disillusionment and continued searching.

oOoOoOo

Deep in the Forbidden Forest, Narcissa Malfoy leaned over the prone form of Harry Potter.

“Is he alive? Is Severus alive?” she whispered, voice barely audible.

Harry, hardly moving at all, nodded.

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could not for the life of me think of a song or quote to go with this chapter. If any of you have one that you like for it, drop it in the comments and, if I think it fits, I'll update the story and add it later. 
> 
> Only two chapters left before the epilogues! Seventeen will be up on 12/4, thank you again to TanzaniteWrites for beta-reading. 
> 
> A little self-promotion: If you're at all interested in a Fred/Hermione pairing, I have a piece that will begin being posted on 12/2 for the Fremione Fanatics 2020 Yule Fest. It's AO3 exclusive until Christmas with new chapters dropped on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I highly recommend checking out the rest of the stories being uploaded to the collection over the course of the month as well.


	17. Pandemonium

> _And I will hold  
>  I'll hold onto you  
> No matter what this world'll throw  
> It won't shake me loose_
> 
> _I'll reach my hands out in the dark  
>  And wait for yours to interlock  
> I'll wait for you  
> I'll wait for you_
> 
> _'Cause I'm not givin' up  
>  I'm not givin' up, givin' up  
> No, not yet  
> Even when I'm down to my last breath  
> Even when they say there's nothin' left  
> So don't give up on me_
> 
> _\- Andy Grammer, Don’t Give Up on Me_

“We need to go after him,” Hermione argued, beginning to get aggravated with the conversation. They had reconvened in the Great Hall after leaving the Headmaster’s office and there was dissent among the ranks in regard to what happened next.

Hermione, Ron and Remus were ready to run into the forest, but Kingsley and McGonagall had reasoned that it may already be too late, in which case they would likely be running to their own deaths.

“I don’t care,” Ron shouted, face red, “that’s my bloody brother out there!”

His father came up behind him and placed a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“Mr. Weasley,” McGonagall replied, “I want Mr. Potter to live just as much as you, but the fact of the matter is that he left some time ago and is very likely…”

“Don’t say dead Minerva,” Remus growled, his eyes flashing golden for a split second. “You had better not say dead.

She quieted and pursed her lips.

Hermione was flexing and unflexing her hand around her wand, preparing to run off on her own when they heard a shout from the courtyard.

“NO!” Neville screamed, dropping to his knees in front of the gigantic oak doors. Everybody conscious and mobile sprinted to the entrance and stuttered to a halt behind him, a chorus of dismayed sobs and screams rising from them.

Approaching from across the grounds was Tom Riddle, surrounded by a swarm of dark witches and wizards cloaked in black.

Near the front stood Hagrid with chains wrapped around his neck, clutching the limp, lifeless body of Harry Potter and sobbing.

oOoOoOo

Draco had just made it to the ground floor when he heard the screaming start. Still disillusioned, he took off running toward the noise and discovered a massive collection of people with their backs turned to him, looking out across the grounds. He slowly picked his way around them, skirting the edge of the front doors, to see the Dark Lord and his forces advancing on the school with Potter’s body in tow.

Draco resisted the urge to swear.

Of course Potter had gone. It was all well and fine when his own life was on the line, but the toll taken on those around him must have become too much for his Gryffindor sentimentalities to bear. Draco, like any sensible person, was terribly frustrated with the short-sightedness; had he thought Voldemort would suddenly be disinclined to slaughter his friends if he sacrificed himself?

As he moved to the side of the group, keeping his back tight against the stone wall of the building, he finally saw her. Hermione.

She was battle-worn, covered in dust with her hair in complete disarray from the neat plait she had pulled it into earlier and a streak of blood down one cheek. She looked positively distraught, clutching the Weasley girl’s hand and sobbing.

He fought the urge to go to her, to comfort her; it was stronger than he imagined something like that could be. But this war needed to end, and whatever distant hopes he had for a future with her were dependent upon them not losing today.

He tore his eyes from Hermione and evaluated the approaching ranks, his heartbeat accelerating when he caught sight of his mother and father to Voldemort’s right side, near Potter. But he swore it stopped for a second when he saw, on the left side, a giant, coiling snake held within a purplish-blue ball of magic, hovering just above the ground.

He took a deep breath and let it out before making his way along the edge of the courtyard, carefully picking over rubble, knowing that if he drew attention to himself too soon all would be lost.

Voldemort had finally come to a halt perhaps thirty meters from the gathered crowd and was arguing with Longbottom about something, but Draco was too focused to hear what was said. He had made it as close to the snake as he was going to be able to get without someone noticing the glimmer of magic around him.

One he dropped the spell he would have seconds to cast before every Death Eater present tried to kill him. He knew the bubble around Nagini would likely repel any traditional spell-fire, so he resolved to take a more physical approach, hoping against hope that it would work.

With one last glance at Hermione, he released the disillusionment and conjured a long metal spike, propelling it forward with his wand and driving it through the bubble of magic and directly into the snake’s skull before it lodged in the cobblestone. A spatter of blood sailed across the courtyard, there was a terrible screeching sound, and then absolute pandemonium ensued.

oOoOoOo

“Harry!” Hermione screamed in shock as he leapt from Hagrid’s arms and took off running toward the school, very much not dead.

“Everyone back inside!” he shouted. The Death Eaters had apparently had the same idea, pursuing the battered rebels back through the front doors of the castle. Hermione turned to follow but hesitated, looking back to where Draco had been a minute ago. She didn’t see any sign of him.

She started to make her way back into the school, the courtyard nearly empty now, when she felt a stinging hex hit the back of her left shoulder and she cried out in pain. Keeping a hold on her wand, she spun around to see Theo standing across from her.

Wait – not Theo, just someone that looked a lot like him. With a rush of understanding she realized that this must be Thoros Nott, Theo’s father.

He fired again, but she deflected the spell with a shield charm and dove behind a pile of rubble, frantically reaching into her pocket to extract a gold coin.

“Front courtyard!” she shouted, tapping it with her wand before dropping it and rolling to the side, narrowing avoiding a tendril of flame that shot from the man’s wand.

oOoOoOo

Theo had just made his way down the grand staircase, dismayed that he hadn’t found his father among the bodies of Death Eaters and dark creatures scattered throughout the castle, when he saw with surprise that the battle had resumed with a vengeance, dark and light wizards alike running into the building and spells flying in every direction.

He jumped when he felt a sudden burning in his pocket, reaching in to remove a galleon with the words “front courtyard” flashing across it. He gripped his wand and took off running, ducking under spells flying between a red-headed wizard with scars on his face and McNair.

As he rounded the corner, he saw the courtyard empty, save for Hermione, a petite witch with white-blonde hair that he didn’t recognize, and his father. The women were holding their own, but this was a fight Theo had been waiting for since his mother died over a decade ago. Years of emotional, and occasionally physical, torment had come to a head and he was going to cut the bastard down if it was the last thing he did.

He loudly cleared his throat and the duel ground to a halt, all three parties turning to look at him as he slowly descended the front steps.

“I’ll take it from here, thank you Hermione,” he said, never taking his eyes off his father.

She nodded and whispered “good luck” to him before rushing back into the castle. The blonde witch stayed but moved backward and took up a position behind his left shoulder against the wall of the school. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt good that someone was going to be present to witness this.

“What do you think you’re doing Theodore?” his father grunted, struggling to comprehend why Theo was at the school in the first place.

“Something I’ve been putting off for a very long time,” Theo replied before shouting without delay, “ _Mille morsus_!”

The spell was intended to cover the victim’s body in bite marks, something he had picked up from a rather nasty book in the Nott family library, but his father jumped sideways and narrowly avoided it.

Then they were off. Spell after spell whizzing between them, growing increasingly dark in nature until they were both casting to kill.

Theo feinted left but his father saw it coming and fired a blasting hex at him, striking his left forearm and shattering the bone. He screamed in pain, slashing his wand sideways as he fell and severing both of the man’s legs above the knee. 

He saw the bastard drop his wand and summoned it to him, snatching it from the air with his good hand before rolling on to his back and sucking in a strangled gasp, clutching his mangled arm to his body. A moment later, two large, pale blue eyes appeared above him, contrasting against the dim light of the early morning sun.

“Hello Theodore,” said the blonde witch in a lilting voice, kneeling next to him. “That was quite good.”

“Thanks,” he huffed out, still trying to catch his breath and blinking rapidly up at her. “Do I know you?”

“No, not yet,” she responded cryptically, reaching out a hand and helping him sit up. She gestured for him to extend his broken arm, which he did after a pause, utterly befuddled by the series of events he was taking part in.

He glanced to the side and saw his father’s body, seemingly dead given the volume of blood pooled around his severed legs.

“Brackium emendo,” he heard the witch mutter from beside him before yelping in pain as his arm snapped back together.

“Sweet Merlin…” he choked. Just as he was about to ask her name, a figure cloaked in black rushed at them from down the castle stairs. He scrambled to draw his wand, but she beat him to it, deftly flicking her own toward the approaching man.

He watched in amazement as the bloke’s knees reversed and he fell to the ground screaming. Another flick and he was stunned, unconscious. Theo’s eyes were as big as saucers as he peered down at the small, unassuming looking woman in front of him.

“Well… you’re quite scary,” he said after a moment, brows pulling together in wonder. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, but it’s Luna. Luna Lovegood,” she replied with a wistful smile. She grasped his hand and pulled him to his feet and toward the Great Hall. “Come on, it appears there’s something happening inside.”

With an utterly bemused look on his face, he spared one last glance at his father’s corpse before following her.

oOoOoOo

“There you are, you little mudblood cunt,” Hermione heard someone spit at her just as she had passed into the entrance hall of the castle. She recognized the voice and her blood ran cold. Apparently, the spell she had fired earlier in the battle had done little more than piss the witch off because there, in front of her, stood Bellatrix Lestrange.

“Here I am,” Hermione hedged, gripping her wand at her side and circling around the woman. There were several people nearby, but they were locked in their own duels and not paying attention.

Hermione hoped that, if she died here, Draco would be okay. She had seen him moments ago and he was alive, and that thought alone strengthened her resolve. This was not only the woman that had tortured her, locked her away to rot and die, but she had tormented Draco and his mother for years, killed Sirius, and destroyed Neville’s family and who knew how many others. If Hermione was going to be killed, she was hell-bent on taking the bitch with her.

“Crucio!” Bellatrix screeched and Hermione dove sideways to avoid the flash of blood-red light.

“Reducto!” she responded, watching as the spell rebounded off a shield and struck a nearby sconce, which promptly exploded.

They traded hexes and curses, Hermione whipping the darkest incantations she could think of across the hall. Slicing, blasting, blood boiling, entrail-expelling, eye melting, skin-stripping… things she had never dared to actually cast before, but it wasn’t enough. Skilled though she was, she was eighteen years old and simply didn’t have the experience necessary to best a witch of Bellatrix’s calibre. She was insane, that was beyond doubt, but she was talented and lightning quick, countering spells before they even left Hermione’s wand.

She was forced to go on the defensive, throwing up a shield a moment too late as a slicing hex glanced across her shoulder, narrowly missing her throat. And then she fell.

Bellatrix towered over her, sadistic smile on her face and a wild glint in her eye. In that moment, staring down the end of the wand, she finally thought of Draco; thought of all the things she hadn’t let herself think since leaving him at Nott Manor, and she grieved for the future they would never get to have. Things she would never get to say.

“Avada Kedavra!” Hermione squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the spell to hit her, kill her, but the blow never came. She flicked them open to see Bellatrix, still hovering over her, but her eyes were blank, the ghost of a sneer still on her face as she toppled to the side, dead.

Behind her, wand still held aloft, stood none other than Narcissa Malfoy.

“It appears you really do have to mean it,” she mused as she took in the lifeless corpse of her sister. Shaking her head, she stepped over the body and sighed, extending a hand to Hermione and pulling her to her feet. “Ferula.”

White bandages sprang from her wand and wrapped around Hermione’s lacerated bicep, staunching the flow of blood.

Hermione opened her mouth to speak when she heard a voice shout from within the Great Hall, “Nobody intervene!” 

It was unmistakably Harry.

Hermione met Narcissa’s pale grey eyes, Draco’s eyes, and they both nodded. They joined up with Theo, who was thankfully still alive, and Luna, walking in from the courtyard. Upon entering the Great Hall they saw Harry and Voldemort circling each other in the center of the room while everyone present, light and dark alike, stood and watched.

oOoOoOo

Blaise wasn’t entirely sure what was happening when he emerged from the dungeons, not bothering with disillusionment now that he was no longer in the company of Draco, whose head was likely recognizable from the moon.

The fight seemed to have resumed with vigor, screaming and spellfire ringing out in all directions. He skillfully avoided a nasty orange curse that flew awry and missed his shoulder by centimetres.

Just as he was trying to decide where to jump in, a horde of house elves erupted from behind him out of the dungeons and shoved him to the side and into the wall, wielding carving knives and meat mallets. He stood in shock and watched as they engulfed a nearby wizard, stabbing and pulverising every inch they could reach as the man sank to the ground, trying to claw his way out of the swarm to no avail.

Blaise had seen some pretty fucked up things in his life, but this had to be the single-most bizarre. Moments later the elves moved on to find their next victim, leaving a mangled, bloody corpse in their wake. He stood for another moment, still stunned, before huffing out a breath and pushing away from the wall, just in time to nearly step on someone that flew into it and crashed to the ground in a heap.

“Bombarda!” Blaise shouted, aiming his wand in the direction the bloke had come from. He watched as it hit true, the cloaked man’s chest caving in as he fell backward. He made a satisfied ‘hmph’ sound and then turned to the wizard on the ground.

“Alright there, mate?” he asked, as the man sat up and wiped blood from a cut above his eye.

“Aye, but me bloody wand is clear snapped in two,” he responded in a thick brogue, holding up the broken piece of wood.

“Here,” Blaise said, extracting six or so from his pocket and brandishing them like a bouquet, “have one of mine.”

The wizard raised a dark eyebrow in astonishment, which was reasonable given that it wasn’t typical to carry one extra wand on your person, let alone half a dozen. He ran his hand over them before extracting a long, slender piece of yew.

“Thanks,” he said, as Blaise helped him to his feet, “name’s Oliver Wood.”

While Blaise generally bed women, he had been known to play for both quidditch teams when a good-looking wizard came along. Pretty people were pretty people after all, and this man was certainly among them.

“Blaise Zabini,” he responded, extending his hand with a coy smirk.

oOoOoOo

After Draco speared Nagini in the courtyard, he bolted toward Hermione but was quickly shuffled inside by a torrent of people running into the building. He lost her among the throng and swore under his breath. Catching sight of Potter to one side of the Great Hall, he sprinted toward him and tackled him to the ground near the base of a wall while fighting broke out on all sides.

“Malfoy, what are you-?!” Potter started in shock before Draco cut him off.

“Are they destroyed?!” he demanded, grabbing the wizard by the collar of the shirt. “Are the horcruxes destroyed?”

“I – wha – yeah, the snake was the last one,” Harry answered, completely gob-smacked by both the man in front of him and the words coming out of his mouth.

“Then fucking _finish this already_!!” Draco shouted, ducking to avoid a stunner that flew toward him and firing one back in the direction it had come from.

Harry started to move away before jerking back and levelling his gaze at Draco, stormy grey clashing with brilliant green.

“Malfoy, after that night on the astronomy tower, did anyone beat you in a duel? Or disarm you?” Harry demanded, his voice fast and urgent.

“You want to compare wands NOW?!” Draco shouted over the din, convinced the man had completely lost his mind.

“DUCK!” Harry shouted, shoving Malfoy to the ground as a green killing curse flew over their heads, narrowly missing the both of them. “Well?!”

“Yes! Yes, my mother disarmed me at the manor before you and the ginger git came running into the room!” Malfoy yelled back, now thoroughly annoyed with the situation. He'd snog Longbottom before he explained to Potter why exactly that had happened. 

“So that means…” Harry’s eyes widened, and he ran off toward the center of the hall without another word.

“Bloody Potter...” Draco growled, shaking his head and dodging another curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left before the epilogues. Pretty wild. 
> 
> Chapter 18 will be posted on 12/11. 
> 
> In other news, the first chapter of my Fremione holiday story is live under the "Works" tab on my page if you were interested in reading that. I promise that this is the last you'll hear about it.
> 
> Beta love to TanzaniteWrites!


	18. Crushed

> "The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult."
> 
> \- Winston Churchill 

“Avada Kedavra!”

“Expelleriamus!”

Hermione watched with bated breath as the wand flew from Voldemort’s hand and landed in Harry’s, the Dark Lord dropping to the ground dead. She had to admit, having been out of the fray for the past month had clearly put her behind on a few things, and the actual existence of the Elder Wand was one of them. She was silently grateful that Harry hadn’t listened to her about ignoring the hallows in exchange for the horcruxes, because both had been paramount in his victory.

Upon entering with Narcissa, Theo and Luna, she had spotted Draco across the hall, standing near Ron of all people, but they silently made eye contact and acknowledged that now was not the time. Nobody wanted to risk distracting Harry.

After Voldemort fell there was a moment of silence that positively rang through the chamber.

Just as she drew in a breath to cheer, to clap, to run across the hall and into Draco’s arms, a figure with long, platinum hair stepped into the open circle to Harry’s right and raised his wand, aiming it directly at the Malfoy heir. Everything after that happened in slow motion.

A spell flew from the man’s wand, a wordless bolt of sickening yellow light. Draco’s eyes widened briefly before he conjured a shield, which materialized in front of him milliseconds before the spell made contact. The light ricocheted and crashed into the wall beside him in a massive explosion.

Hermione raised her own wand at the attacking wizard and screamed, “ _diffindo_ ,” her spell striking him in the side of the neck and sending a tremendous gush of blood cascading to the floor.

“Move!” Draco shouted, lunging toward Ron beside him to push him out of the way of the torrent of falling stone, but he was too late and both boys crumpled under a wave of grey rock.

“NO!” Hermione screamed, running across the hall, jumping over Voldemort’s corpse in the process, and beginning to tear the jagged chunks of stone away with her bare hands, ignoring as they ripped open and bled. 

He wasn’t dead, he couldn’t be dead. And Ron… She blinked rapidly, tears clouding her vision, when suddenly two arms wrapped around her from behind and pulled her away from the mound of stone.

“No, no, let me go!” she shrieked, kicking her legs and scratching at the exposed flesh of her captor, desperately trying to get back to Draco, but the arms tightened further.

“Hermione, Hermione, we have to clear the rock off of them, please stop clawing me,” Theo pleaded, his mouth near her ear and his voice tight. She then processed Blaise and Harry, side by side with several other people, levitating stones up and away as quickly as they could.

“They can’t be dead, he can’t be dead,” she choked over and over again, Theo guiding her gently to the ground as her knees gave out and she sobbed. Narcissa came up beside her and knelt down, placing a hand on her shoulder, tears silently sliding down her own cheeks. She completely ignored her dead husband several meters away, blood still blooming in a pool around his corpse.

Everyone in the Great Hall watched with varying looks of shock, confusion and grief on their face as Hermione Granger, publicly, violently, broke.

“We’ve got them!” Harry yelled, reaching forward and grabbing Ron’s hand, pulling him from the rubble while Blaise did the same with Draco. Madam Pomfrey and Hannah Abbott rushed forward, Hannah going to Ron’s side and Madam Pomfrey to Draco’s.

“Please, please, please,” she pleaded, rocking back and forth, clutching Theo’s hand so hard she was surprised the bones didn’t shatter. He didn’t even seem to notice, eyes locked on his unconscious best friend and his face grim.

Hannah looked up at Harry, who was knelt on Ron’s other side, and shook her head slowly, tears streaming down her face. His head was clearly split open, gray matter and blood leaking out onto the floor. Harry screamed and began to sob so hard he retched, crawling away to be violently ill near the pile of rubble.

Hermione felt the loss deep in her core, but it was fighting with her anxiety as Madam Pomfrey assessed Draco.

“He’s alive,” she said after what felt like an eternity, beginning to waive her wand in a complex motion over him. Blaise extracted all manner of potions from his pockets and put them down next to her. She reached over and selected several, pouring them into Draco’s mouth before vanishing his shirt and dumping another over his left side, which was completely purple and red, blood pooled under the skin and several ribs clearly crushed.

His chest was barely moving, but he was breathing. He was still breathing. She finally leaned back and tightly bound his torso with white bandages.

“We need to get him to the hospital ward,” she clipped, levitating his body off the ground and walking swiftly from the room with him floating in front of her. Narcissa, Theo and Blaise followed immediately.

Hermione paused for a moment, torn. Harry was a wreck in the corner near Ron’s body and the Weasleys were no better off, huddled around the corpse of their dead brother and child, screaming and sobbing. The logical part of her brain reasoned that Ron was already gone, her staying wouldn’t change that. She got to her feet and followed Draco from the hall.

oOoOoOo

Hermione sat next to Draco’s bed in the hospital ward several hours later. Madam Pomfrey had assured her shortly after arriving that he would be fine and that he was dosed with a sleeping draught that would last for the better part of the day, but she adamantly refused to leave his side.

Theo, Blaise and Narcissa had stayed as well. The boys left to go get food from the kitchens, but neither witch had any interest in eating.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione said when it was just the two of them, her voice hoarse from crying, “about… about killing your husband.” 

“I assure you, you did me a kindness,” Narcissa responded, sounding absolutely exhausted.

Hermione looked up from Draco’s sleeping face to study the woman across from her. Prior to tonight the only time she had ever seen Narcissa Malfoy had been in public, and she had been smooth and collected then. Composed and prim in a way only someone of veritable nobility could be.

That was not the witch she sat before now. This Narcissa was drawn. Her long blonde hair was falling out of its once elegant twist at the base of her neck and there was a rip in her robes near the collar. The expression on her face was that of any mother that sat next to the hospital bed of her child.

Draco had been the first moved to the hospital wing, the most severely injured without actually being dead, but in the aftermath of the battle more of the wounded had slowly been transitioned up to the waiting beds. Hermione saw Percy, Lee and Tonks across the ward, as well as Dean, who appeared to have lost his left hand at some point, a bandaged stump lay on the bed beside him.

She was a little surprised to see Seamus lean in and kiss him, gently stroking his face and trying to calm him down when he regained consciousness and became aware of his missing limb. But then, perhaps she was more surprised that she wasn’t surprised. The boys had always been close and she, more than most, knew how easily relationships could transform when you stopped worrying about what the world might think.

Remus had been at Tonks’ side since the moment they had moved her. Madam Pomfrey had finally been able to dose her with a sleeping draught and her chest rose and fell in steady, even breaths while her brain mended. Remus had laid his head on the bed next to their entwined hands and drifted off some time later.

Percy had had a revolving door of grief-stricken Weasleys sitting with him; the only one Hermione hadn’t seen yet was Molly. She knew that the dead were being kept in a room off the Great Hall and assumed that’s where she was, wincing internally at the image.

Losing Ron was a tremendous blow – the victory seemingly pyrrhic. She had had plenty of time to think since taking up her vigil. While she and Ron had fallen out after he left Harry and her in the forest months ago, he had been one of her best friends for the better part of a decade. She couldn’t fathom never hearing him laugh again, never scolding him for talking with his mouth full or neglecting his homework. She felt as if there were a hole in her chest, piercing her lungs and making it difficult to breath.

Harry had been brought in not long after Tonks. While he wasn’t injured beyond minor scrapes and bruises, he had apparently slipped into a state of shock after pulling Ron’s mangled body from the rubble. Madam Pomfrey had to give him a double dose of calming draught followed by a dreamless sleep potion before placing him in a corner bed and drawing the curtains.

“I want you to know, I don’t harbor any ill will toward you in regard to your blood status,” Narcissa said slowly, shaking Hermione from her reverie. “My late husband’s views were not my own, and I’m terribly proud of my son for having the good sense to develop his own opinions. Draco cares about you, and that’s all that matters to me. All I want in this world is for him to be happy and safe.”

Hermione nodded, her eyes tearing slightly. It wasn’t something she had expected, but it had been nearly a year since she had seen her own mother, and the maternal affection, however brief, struck her.

“Thank you, Mrs. Malfoy,” she replied, voice tight with emotion. “And I want you to know that I… I care for your son deeply.”

“You don’t need to tell me dear, I think the entirety of the school knows that by now. And please, call me Narcissa.”

Hermione huffed in agreement before continuing. “When we were in the cell, I was… I didn’t think I was going to survive. Things got quite bad, but Draco never wavered, never once stopped taking care of me. He’s a good man. You raised a good man.”

Narcissa reached across the bed and placed a hand lightly on her cheek, a small smile on her lips. “It appears you’re good for him. I certainly wish things hadn’t played out exactly as they did, but I’m glad you had one another in that dreadful place.” She dropped her hand and looked down at her son, a bemused expression on her face. “Though I swear, he took ten years off my life when he raised his wand at my lunatic sister.”

Hermione’s eyes went wide and she’d just opened her mouth to ask what on earth that meant when she saw someone approach in her periphery and she turned to see Molly Weasley, silently vowing to follow up on the comment at another time. Her eyes were red and her cheeks swollen, but she had a look of firm resolve on her face. Narcissa got to her feet and walked around the foot of the bed to stand in front of the stout, red-headed witch. The contrast between the two women would have been laughable in any other scenario.

“Mrs. Weasley,” she began, “I’m so terribly sorry for your loss.”

Molly nodded her gratitude before responding, her voice raw and choking her every few words. “I came over to say… I wanted to say thank you. I’ll say it to your son as well when he wakes up. He… I know that Ronald still… but he tried to save him. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but…”

Narcissa nodded and reached a hand out, gripping Molly’s own tightly. Whatever else had happened, however different their lives had been, they were both mothers, and despite everything, that bonded them.

“I’m sorry,” she said once again before releasing her hand. Molly nodded resolutely and drew in a shaky breath. She turned to walk away but stopped, pivoting back to Hermione.

“Hermione, I know you and Ron never… but you should know that you _always_ have a place with our family.”

Hermione’s own eyes welled with tears and she nodded, choking out a thanks. Molly turned again and crossed the room to join Charlie at Percy’s bedside. Her mind latched on to the word family and refused to let go. She looked from Narcissa to Draco before turning her eyes to the bed in the corner with the curtains drawn.

“If you’ll excuse me, I… I need to check on Harry,” she said softly.

Narcissa nodded in understanding and resumed her post by Draco’s side. Hermione got to her feet, head swimming a little from lack of food and dehydration, and moved shakily across the room. Madam Pomfrey, who had been keeping a close eye on the bed, saw her and nodded her assent before turning back to the wound she was bandaging.

Hermione drew in a breath and slipped around the curtain. There must have been a silencing spell in place because as soon as she did, the background noise of the hospital wing ceased.

Harry was curled in on himself under a blanket, glasses sitting next to a wand, the Elder wand she noted with a start, on the bedside table. His face was lax, eased into that state by the potions, but his eyes were rimmed red. She sat down next to him and reached a hand out, pushing his inky black bangs back from his face. He looked so young.

While she considered the Weasleys family, and she knew Harry did as well, at the root of it, they were both alone. No siblings or parents to speak of. Harry was an orphan, not even having his godfather any longer, and Hermione… she hadn’t said it out loud yet, but she knew that the types of memory spells she had placed on her parents would take years of therapy to reverse, and even then it was unlikely they would never be the same, let alone ever trust her again. She had resolved months ago that, regardless of how the war turned out, she wouldn’t put them through that. Wendell and Monika Wilkes would live out the rest of their lives in Australia, blissfully unaware that they had ever had a daughter.

In her mind and her heart, Harry was the closest thing Hermione had to family now. Her brother. Her best friend. As she watched him lying there, she recalled their nights together in the tent. His confessions that he feared he wouldn’t be enough. That he would fail and have to watch everyone he cared about die. The more she thought about it, the more she wished she had her time-turner so she could go back and kill Lucius Malfoy again.

She moved to perch on the edge of the bed and leaned in to kiss his forehead, next to his scar.

“It’ll be okay Harry,” she murmured. “We’re going to be okay.”

oOoOoOo

Draco Malfoy awoke from his magically-induced coma at 12:26 pm on the 2nd May to see his bed surrounded by people. Madam Pomfrey was near his head, waving her lit wand tip in front of his eyes. On his left side was his mother, resting her hand on his shoulder and looking slightly worse for wear but smiling at him nonetheless. Standing near his feet were Blaise and Theo, identical expressions of relief on their faces. And to his right, holding his hand, was Hermione.

He met her warm brown eyes, completely ignoring Pomfrey’s instructions to follow the light. His witch looked exhausted, and she wore an expression so flooded with concern that he was afraid she might crack under the weight of it. She clearly hadn’t taken the time to clean up while he had been unconscious, a streak of blood still across her cheek and her clothes torn in some places and singed in others, the left sleeve of her shirt stained with dry blood. And despite everything, she was still absolutely beautiful.

“Hermione,” he breathed, ignoring the stabbing in the left side of his chest as he did so. Pomfrey gave up her mission and extinguished her wand before huffing and bustling away, returning a second later with a potion that he assumed was a pain reliever.

“Drink,” she ordered, and he complied, but his eyes never left Hermione’s face. He knew it was selfish, that his mother and friends deserved his attention as well, but after everything he was terrified that if he blinked, if he looked away for even a second, she might disappear again.

“Why don’t we give you two a moment,” Narcissa said as she got to her feet, shooing the boys away from the bed and drawing the curtain behind them. He swore he heard Blaise mutter something along the lines of “he’s a goner” as they left. Pomfrey took the empty vial and followed, likely to see to the numerous other patients.

The minute they were alone, Hermione blurted, “I love you,” before slapping a hand over her mouth. He felt something tighten in his chest, completely independent of the pain he had been feeling several seconds ago. It was new and foreign, but not at all unwelcome.

“Come here,” he said with a worn smile, voice gravelly. He shifted slightly and pulled the blanket away from his right side, motioning for her to climb under. She wasted no time in kicking off her trainers and sliding in beside him.

“I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry,” she choked out, beginning to cry in earnest as she buried her head in his neck. His left arm was in a sling and bound securely against his chest, but he brought his right arm up and wrapped it as tightly as he could around her shoulders, holding her to him.

“It’s okay, we’re okay,” he whispered to her, turning his head to kiss her temple. The words had become something of a mantra between them

“I tried – I tried to stop him, but I was too slow.”

“Did Weasley-?”

He felt her shake her head. He had certainly had no love for the man, but he couldn’t help but feel guilty that his death was at the hand of Draco’s own madcap father.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, genuinely, “I know he was your friend.”

“Your father – I killed your father Draco,” she spat out frantically, pushing up to look at this face.

His eyes widened slightly at this, eyebrows twitching up. He thought he had seen the man fall before the rocks came crashing down, but he didn’t know by whose hand.

“You did the world a favor,” he assured her after a moment, at which she let out a tight laugh.

“That’s almost exactly what your mum said.”

They laid in silence after that, listening to one another breathe and reveling in the warmth of their embrace. Finally, he spoke.

“Hermione?”

“Yes, Draco?”

“I love you too.”

She closed her eyes and it felt like something clicked, locked into place, like the final piece of a very long and very complicated jigsaw puzzle.

Several moments passed before Hermione, speaking in a very calm, soft voice, asked innocuously into his chest, “Draco, what did your mother mean when she said she saw you raise your wand against Bellatrix?”

oOoOoOo

It was another two hours before anyone remembered that Severus Snape was in the Shrieking Shack.

Tonks had awoken, Remus with her, and he was catching her up on what had happened while she was unconscious.

“Oh, sweet Merlin, Snape… we forgot Snape!” he shouted suddenly, jumping to his feet. “We bound him and left him in the Shrieking Shack!”

He had been attacked by Nagini well over eight hours ago at this point. Nobody noticed that, shortly after Remus’ exclamation, Narcissa Malfoy slipped from the room and disappeared quickly down the stairs of the castle, out onto the grounds.

“I’ll have Kingsley get him,” Hermione said from three beds down where she had been sitting with Blaise and Theo beside Draco, who was now awake and eating with gusto. Hermione had been wanting to try the speaking Patronus charm for a while and now, after the battle when there was a glimmer of hope in the air, was as good a time as any.

Also, she’d been given a half-dose of calming draught after learning what had actually happened at Malfoy Manor and all things considered she was feeling pretty loose.

“Expecto Patronum,” she said, swishing her wand.

She almost dropped it in shock when, instead of her usual, playful otter, a beautiful silver and white dragon burst forth in its place.

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I digress, I couldn’t save everyone. JK said she planned to kill one of the Trio but couldn’t do it. I have no such qualms. Sorry to any Ron fans!
> 
> Just the epilogues now, both of which will be posted on 12/18.
> 
> P.S. I know a lot of people think the Patronus trope is stupid and overused, and to those people I say, with all the love in my heart: write your own story.


	19. Epilogue 1: A short time later

The funerals had started three days after the battle. Draco was still on bed rest for another week, recovering from what had ultimately amounted to four broken ribs, a broken clavicle, a severe concussion, a crushed humerus, and a collapsed lung. After much berating, he had been released from the hospital ward with strict instructions from Madam Pomfrey to remain as immobile as possible.

He, along with Hermione, Theo, and Blaise, had temporarily moved into Blaise’s mother’s still-vacant flat in London where he had a private healer that was on-contract with the Malfoy family come every few days to monitor his recovery.

Calling the place a flat, Hermione had decided upon seeing the residence, was a bit misleading. Elegant four-bedroomed townhouse apartment with a private garden was a much more apt description. Hermione was still trying to get used to being friends with the obscenely wealthy upper-echelon of the wizarding world; while her parents had made good money and she had never wanted for much, it was still foreign to literally _never_ have to worry about what something might cost.

Narcissa had opted not to return to Malfoy Manor either, instead staying with her also newly widowed sister Andromeda at her home in Bexleyheath. From what Hermione had heard, the two were working on mending their relationship as well as recovering from their individual hardships brought about by the war.

While there had been some public outcry about the surviving Malfoys’ exoneration, all present at the battle, as well as the remaining two thirds of the ‘Golden Trio,’ had testified on their behalf and any charges that might have been raised were quickly dismissed. The Prophet had gone so far as to paint Draco as something of a hero, despite his adamantly refusing to comment.

When Harry had eventually emerged from his grief-induced catatonia, he had shared the story of Severus Snape with the assistance of the memories he had been provided. Of his true loyalties in acting on Dumbledore’s wishes, as well as his personal motivations in protecting Harry.

The only issue was that nobody seemed to know where the man had disappeared to. The day of the battle, shortly after Remus’ recollection, Kingsley and Bill had gone to retrieve him from the Shrieking Shack, only to find that he had vanished without a trace.

Hermione eventually pulled it out of Draco that his mother had set Snape up at one of their properties in France, allowing him time to lay low and recover both physically and emotionally. Hermione debated telling Harry but thought it could probably wait. Harry, bless him, had decided Snape was a bit of a hero as well, and she could only imagine how that conversation might go when it inevitably occurred.

Hermione’s theory that Dumbledore had lost his mind before dying was only reinforced by Snape’s story. How the old wizard had imagined everything playing out was beyond her, and she tried not to think about how differently things might have gone without the cloak and dagger act, but she kept her grievances largely quiet, voicing them only to Draco – who adamantly agreed.

Harry himself was staying at The Burrow with the Weasley family, leaning on one another in their collective grief. Hermione stopped over a couple times but found it more difficult being there than she had anticipated. While coping with the sadness permeating the house was one thing, the memories that flooded her upon entering the home were something entirely different.

It was during one such visit that she finally caught up with Harry, sitting next to him on his bed in the twins’ old room.

He told her what had happened after they lost her at the Manor.

Apparently, it had been Dobby that had got them out – he was planning to come back and get her after transporting Harry and Ron, but he ultimately perished under Bellatrix’s blade before he had the chance. They apparated to Shell Cottage on the coast where Bill and Fleur were staying, taking Griphook, a Gringotts goblin, Luna, Dean and Mr. Ollivander with them, all of whom were being held in the dungeons of the Manor for one reason or another.

Harry had shut down after that, thinking Hermione was dead – which was painful for her to hear and left her desperately wishing once again that she had had a way to tell him she was okay. For weeks he lost himself in grief before finally, five days before the battle, Bill had gone on a supply run and returned with a copy of the Daily Prophet featuring none other than Hermione on the cover.

Thinking she was being held captive at the ministry and not dead, Harry was newly motivated to end the war and get her out, which ultimately led to him disclosing their mission and everything they knew about the horcruxes to the upper Order members.

Harry’s initial plan was to bargain with Griphook to gain access to the Lestrange vault, following the lead they had overheard while Hermione was being tortured, but this was quickly dismissed by Bill, who worked closely with the goblins and knew their tendency to twist agreements in their favor. He worked so closely in fact, that he was aware of several subterranean entrances to the vaults, ‘back doors’ that curse-breakers used to update and add enchantments. 

A team consisting of Bill, Charlie, Ron and Harry had broken into the bank and removed the object before anyone upstairs was the wiser. Bill had worked through and disarmed the various spells and protections, allowing Ron and Harry to enter and get the horcrux, a chalice belonging to Helga Hufflepuff, while Charlie kept the dragon that guarded the most secure vaults at bay.

He had briefly tried to convince them to set it loose, blind and abused as it was, but had been unanimously shot down, escaping only moments before the alarms were finally triggered.

After that, the rest was history. Voldemort realized what they had been doing and began to amass troops while Harry and the Order organized to take the school back. As soon as they were in, Ron and Harry had gone to the Chamber of Secrets, collected a basilisk fang, and destroyed the soul shard in the chalice before retrieving and doing the same with the diadem in the Room of Requirement, assisted by Kingsley. 

He asked Hermione about the cell, about her and Draco, noting that she referred to the youngest Malfoy by his first name now with an arched brow.

She tried her best to explain what it was like. How at first, they had been vicious and impatient with one another, letting bits of information slip out only to bite them back. She told him about her failed attempt at occlumency, which he looked a bit smug about, then their argument, and finally she told him about getting sick.

She left out the sex, shuddering at the thought of discussing it with Harry, but she did tell him about how Draco had taken care of her. How, even when they both knew there wasn’t any chance of her getting better, he kept cleaning her up and trying to get her to eat.

She told him about what it felt like knowing that she was going to die, which as it happened was a shared experience between them after he had explained about the horcrux and his own death march into the forest.

Harry remained largely quiet throughout the tale, which ended with her stunning Draco at Nott Manor and joining the battle at the school.

“But he came after you?” Harry asked, to which she nodded and he sighed. “Damn it all Hermione – you’re giving me no choice but to like the bastard.”

She knew he was joking. After Draco had killed the snake and tried to save Ron, any real malice between the two had given way to a sort of begrudging respect, each acknowledging, however silently, what the other had sacrificed.

“Harry,” she finally said, after almost all of their cards had been laid on the table, “I want you to know that… my parents aren’t coming back from Australia.”

“What do you mean? I thought you were going to get them and reverse the memory charms.”

“That’s not how it works,” she said, shaking her head sadly. She hadn’t even told Draco this yet, though she thought he might have guessed. “The kind of spells I put on them are… they’re more or less permanent.”

“Hermione, I-“

“That’s not why I bring it up,” she said, cutting him off with a raised hand. “I want you to know that… that you are my family now. So are Draco and Theo and the Weasleys, but you… you’re my brother Harry, you’ve been my brother since we were twelve years old. I love you, and whatever you need, however I can help while we heal from this and move on with our lives, I’m here for you. Always.”

Harry sniffled and didn’t say anything before he turned suddenly and wrapped her in a tight hug, kissing her on the top of her head.

“Love you too, Hermione.”

oOoOoOo

“I’m sorry I can’t go with you,” Draco said for the millionth time from their bed at the townhouse, where he was propped against the pillows. Hermione had just slipped on her black pumps for the third time in as many days, but this funeral was different. This one was Ron’s. She had already attended Cho Chang’s, Colin Creevey’s and Hestia Jones’ interments, and while the losses were difficult, Colin’s in particular, she knew that today would be brutal.

She crossed the room to perch on the edge of the bed, kissing him lightly on the cheek. “It’s alright, I know you would be there for me if you could.”

While Draco wasn’t able to go with her, having not been cleared for travel, she had been surprised to find that both Narcissa and Theo would be in attendance. Narcissa with Andromeda and Theo with, to everyone’s great surprise, Luna.

“I have to get on with it,” Hermione sighed. Draco squeezed her hand lightly before she got up and grabbed her beaded bag off the dresser, which Harry had been holding on to. Having charmed it black to match her dress, she steeled herself and departed.

The funeral went as well as could be expected. Ron was being buried on a small plot of land near The Burrow’s orchards where the boys used to play quidditch, and the chairs from Bill and Fleur’s wedding the year prior had been lined up surrounding a dark mahogany coffin. She found out later that it had been paid for anonymously and couldn’t decide which Malfoy to thank first.

Harry spoke, as well as Kingsley, who, having been appointed acting Minister of Magic, awarded Ron an Order of Merlin posthumously. It was presented in a small crystal box to his parents. Toward the end of the ceremony, Harry, Hermione, and all of the Weasleys each got up to place a single white rose on his coffin, at which point Molly had begun sobbing so hard that Charlie had to escort her away.

Afterward, as she returned to her seat, Hermione looked around and noted that just about everyone she knew in the wizarding world was present. Narcissa and Andromeda sat with Remus and Tonks, who was bouncing little Teddy on her lap with his vibrant turquoise hair, blissfully unaware of what was going on. Luna stood with Theo and her father near the back, not far from Seamus, Dean and Neville. Hagrid was wearing his atrocious suit and sobbing into a tablecloth sized hankie, and Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Slughorn were all in attendance as well, clumped in a group to one side with heads bowed respectfully.

Once the casket had been lowered into the ground, magically covered with dirt and wildflowers that sprang from the earth, everyone began to make their way back up to The Burrow where tables with tea and refreshments had been set out behind the house.

Kingsley stopped briefly on his way and informed her that the investigation she had requested in regard to her stolen identity had born fruit. Apparently, Lucius Malfoy had been working with none other than Dolores Umbridge, who was in charge of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission; he collected Hermione’s hair before she was brought to Lestrange Manor and twisted it with the death eaters and Bellatrix that it would be wise to hold her as leverage against Harry.

She tried to muster up anger about this, she truly did, but frankly she was emotionally drained and it just wasn’t all that surprising. _Of course_ , Umbridge had been behind it. Kingsley was happy to relay to her that, while they were working on drawing up formal charges, he had taken the liberty of terminating the witch and informing her that he would do his best to assure she spent the rest of her life in Azkaban. It had caused quite the scene, ending in Umbridge needing to be stunned and forcibly removed from the building to be held on house-arrest until a trial.

Kingsley patted her on the shoulder before turning and heading toward the house.

Hermione lingered, standing beneath one of the apple trees that had just begun to bloom and looking out over the rolling hills leading down to Ottery St. Catchpole. She sensed someone come up behind her and she squeezed her eyes shut, smiling as she recognized the faint scent of cinnamon and gunpowder.

“Hello Fred.”

“Hello beautiful,” responded the elder Weasley twin, “how are you holding up?”

“I should be asking you that,” she replied, blinking her eyes open to glance at him, “he was your brother.”

“And he was your friend.”

She noted that, rather than his usual, rather colourful wardrobe, he was garbed in a dark blue suit that offset his coppery hair. They stood in silence for a moment, listening to the wind rustling through the trees.

“So, Malfoy?”

“Yeah,” she responded with a small chuckle, tilting her head. “Don’t ask me how it happened, it’s… an astoundingly long story.”

“He’s good to you though? He makes you happy?”

She looked up and met his eyes, light blue in the sunlight; they were sad, heavy with the gravity of the day, but they were still framed with laugh lines, crinkling ever so slightly around the edges.

The previous summer, the night that they had lost Moody and George had been hurt, the night that in Hermione’s mind had marked the true start of the war, Hermione and Fred had fallen together rather than falling apart, a heated tangle of limbs and fear and grief.

They had never had a chance to really discuss it, but until her imprisonment she had wondered idly if perhaps there was something there waiting for her when all was said and done. That, however, was not to be.

“He is, and he does. He loves me,” she said simply, as sure about that fact as she was that the earth rotated around the sun, or that two plus two equaled four. “He drives me barmy half the time, but at the heart of it all I know that he would give everything for me. He very nearly did.”

Fred nodded and looked away from her across the grounds, his brows pulling together like he wasn’t sure how to say what he was thinking.

“I’m sorry that we never…”

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said. “Everything was moving so quickly; it was all any of us could do to keep afloat.”

“You still deserved more than a quick shag in my childhood bedroom, Hermione.”

She recalled the last time she had had sex, on the floor of a dingy stone cell, and thought perhaps maybe it was just something about her.

“Hush, you know what that night meant to me. It was lovely. You’re a wonderful man Fred, and under different circumstances we might have led a very happy life together, but –“

“But I’m not him,” he finished with a sad smile, catching her gaze again.

She paused before nodding.

“You let me know if he hurts you, yeah? George and I can make it look like a tragic accident.”

She laughed, bumping him with her shoulder as the tension dissolved, “I’ll do that Fred.”

At that, the pair turned and walked back to The Burrow.

oOoOoOo

Hermione and Theo apparated back to the townhouse apartment together later that evening, both more than a little tipsy from the bottles of firewhiskey that had been liberally passed around after the service.

“You know Herrr-mione,” Theo hiccupped as they leaned on each other walking up the front steps, Hermione carrying her shoes and bag in one hand, the other looped around his elbow. “I quite like you, you’re much better than the other chits Drake has dated.”

“Is that so?” she laughed, noting that one of his eyelids was drooping a bit.

“Yep, I’m glad you two are together because now we get to be friends.”

“We could have been friends anyway, you know.”

“Nuh uh,” he shook his head vigorously, veering off the path for a moment before righting himself, but didn’t explain why that was the case.

They stumbled into the foyer only to be met by Blaise, who was, dramatic as ever, clad in a green silk dressing gown and matching slippers.

“Oh Merlin, you two are pissed, aren’t you?” he said wearily, dismayed at the sight of them.

Theo responded by promptly falling on his arse trying to remove his shoes, sending Hermione into a fit of giggles.

“Okay, you,” Blaise said, pointing to Hermione, “upstairs. You’re Draco’s witch and therefore Draco’s problem.”

She blew a raspberry at him, which had Theo curled into a ball on the ground laughing, before proceeding to stagger over to the polished wooden staircase.

“I swear, I’m not holding your hair back again…” she heard Blaise say to Theo as she ascended.

She entered the bedroom she shared with Draco to find him sitting up in bed reading.

“Well, you’re back awfully late,” he said, shutting his book and looking at her. “How was it?”

“It was a funeral, it was dreadful,” she said, slurring a little while she desperately tried to reach the zip on the back of her dress.

“Are you… are you drunk?”

She stopped and turned to him slowly, one arm caught in her sleeve and pinned against the side of her head.

“… No.”

“Oh my – you _are_ drunk,” he guffawed. “Come here; look at you, you’re a bloody mess.”

She hung her head and sighed as she crossed the room, still being half-strangled by her dress.

He sat up and, not at all assisted by her wiggling and the use of only one of his arms, managed to extract her from the garment.

Once freed, rather than crossing to the loo or changing into her pajamas, she clumsily climbed onto his lap, clad only in her black bra and knickers, and straddled him.

“Hermione, I’m not even cleared for floo travel yet, I don’t think we should-“

“Shhhh, you simply aren’t thinking creatively enough,” she said, placing a finger over his lips and dipping her head to kiss his neck. Her head was a little fuzzy, but she knew she wanted him, and she would take him any way that she could.

He groaned as she ground her hips against his, placing the hand that wasn’t trapped in a sling on her waist and holding her there. She drew her mouth up from his neck, licking and nibbling a path along his jaw before landing squarely on his mouth.

“You taste like firewhiskey,” he muttered against her lips.

“And you taste delicious,” she responded, fishing one hand between them to grasp his growing erection through his pyjama bottoms.

“Are we really –“ he gasped, abruptly cut off as she started to work her hand up and down his length. He tried again, voice shaking, “Are we really going to do this?”

“ _You_ aren’t doing anything,” she said firmly. “ _You_ are going to lay back and think healing thoughts. _I_ , on the other hand…”

She grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it up over his abdomen, tucking it below his sling as she slid down the bed between his knees, dropping kisses on his stomach as she went.

“Hermione, you don’t have to-“ he quieted again as she nipped him on the hip just above the waistband of his pants.

She leaned back a little and hooked her fingers under the elastic, guiding them down his thighs before he assisted, shifting and allowing her to pull them off completely.

She began to slowly work one hand up and down him while she dropped her head between his legs, flicking her tongue across the sensitive skin at the base of his cock, just between his balls, and trailing it up slowly. He gasped and bucked his hips into her clenched fist.

As she moved up, she pulled her hand down, cupping him before suddenly enveloping him in her mouth as far as she could, stopping when he hit the back of her throat.

“Fucking hell,” he breathed out between clenched teeth, reaching down and twisting his free hand into her curls. She began to bob up and down, sucking and flicking her tongue along his sensitive underside while her hand gently tugged and fondled his balls.

His fist tightened in her hair and she had to suppress a gasp as he roughly guided her head up and down rapidly, saliva dripping down his cock. He had been too concerned with hurting her when they were in the cell to be aggressive, but now she felt herself getting wet in response to the subtle act of dominance.

She braced her left arm on the mattress and removed her other hand from between his legs to slide it under her knickers, flicking her fingers back and forth over her clit. She moaned around his dick at the waves of pleasure that coiled in her belly and he shuddered.

“I don’t know how much longer I can…” he said after a while in a strangled tone.

She sped up, rapidly circling her fingers while he guided her head up and down over him. Her orgasm hit her like a freight train, momentarily ceasing her movement as her muscles clenched and she let out a garbled cry.

When she came back down she sat back a little, breathing heavily, and let him fall from her between her lips. He looked at her questioningly for a second but his eyes widened when she pulled her fingers from beneath her knickers, glistening with her arousal, and raised them to her mouth, sucking the webbing of salty fluid off.

She briefly abandoned his cock and crawled up the bed to kiss him, gliding her tongue against his and letting him taste her. 

“Hermione, please,” he begged weakly against her lips.

She slipped down and resumed the vigorous pace she had set before coming. She heard him start to pant and felt his balls tighten in her hand.

“I’m going to – I’m going –“ he made to pull her head away but she shook it, pushing his dick into the back of her throat and swallowing around him, squeezing and sending him over the edge.

He grunted as she continued to bob her head up and down, swallowing as he came in hot, salty spurts across her tongue. When he finally ceased and she felt him relax against the pillows, she gently let him drop from her mouth again, wiping the accumulated saliva on her chin and lips off with the back of her hand.

She crawled back up the bed and curled into his side, head resting lightly on his good shoulder with a content sigh.

“I swear witch,” he said breathlessly, “one day, you’re going to be the death of me.”

He paused for a moment, waiting for her to respond, only to realize upon hearing a soft snore that she had promptly fallen asleep.

oOoOoOo

It was the next morning and they were all seated around the table with tea and toast in front of them.

Theo was a greenish-grey color and silent as the grave, Hermione had her head in her hands and flinched any time anyone made the slightest sound, Draco seemed to be rather satisfied with himself, jovially munching on an apple, and Blaise looked grim, staring at the three of them in turn before speaking.

“So, I think we need to have a serious conversation about silencing charms…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little context here – Fremione was my first ship in the fanfic world, the reason I’m here typing this, and I couldn’t help but tip my hat a bit. Plus, now I get to share the smutty oneshot about Fred and Hermione’s night together, so check back for that if you’re interested; it’ll go up sometime in the next week.


	20. Epilogue 2: Seven years later

“Draco, we are not naming him that,” Hermione said firmly, walking out of the kitchen to place a large salad bowl on the table.

“It’s traditional in my family that all Malfoy children be named after constellations,” he argued, setting down the bottle of wine he had retrieved from the cellar. Hermione gave it a brief look of longing before bustling back through the doorway.

“It’s also traditional in your family to torture muggle-borns, and aren’t I glad that you don’t subscribe to _that_ particular custom.”

He followed her and leaned against the entryway, pursing his lips before exclaiming.

“It’s a good name!”

“We are _not_ naming our child _Scorpius_. If you want to do that, go find some other witch to raise your blond-haired spawn.”

He chuckled and hung his head in defeat, coming up behind her at the counter and wrapping his arms around her waist. She wasn’t showing yet, but they had only figured out she was pregnant day-before-last when she had been violently ill at the breakfast table after he had the audacity to offer her a rasher of bacon. Once they got past the initial joy, they had quickly descended into heated debates, as they often did, about everything from baby names to which house their child might be sorted into.

“You know,” she said, leaning back into him, “there’s just as good a chance this baby is a girl, then what are you going to do?”

“Nonsense, Malfoys have an all-male line.”

“I’ll remind you again that we’ve broken a fair number of other Malfoy conventions.”

That was an understatement. Their marriage four years prior had caused quite a stir in the pureblood community, though Draco couldn’t give two knuts about what they thought anymore and Narcissa was just thrilled to be planning a wedding. Before that, both Draco and Theo had shocked wizarding Britain by having their family homes demolished.

After the war, Hermione and Draco had taken six months to revise before sitting their NEWTs, opting to do so independently rather than returning to Hogwarts. After that they had tried, with the assistance of Bill Weasley, to remove the various dark magics that had settled within the manor, but it was simply too ingrained. Even when all the artefacts had been removed and parts of the house remodeled, they had agreed that it wasn’t somewhere they ever wanted to live. Though he didn’t need it as the Head of House, Draco had consulted with Narcissa and ultimately received her blessing to have the building torn down.

Blaise’s mother had elected to stay in Italy, having found lucky husband number seven, so they continued living in the London townhouse apartment with him, Theo, and, eventually, Luna, before building their current home on a different part of the massive Malfoy estate in Wiltshire.

That had inspired a whole branch of arguments of its own, Draco insisting on grandeur and Hermione wanting somewhere cosy and homey. They eventually compromised and built a large cottage that was cosy and homey.

Theo had done the same, though his home had taken a bit of a left turn when Luna insisted it be painted purple to ‘ward off the nargles.’ If the poor bloke weren’t so besotted, he might be upset that his house looked like an enormous aubergine.

Once they were all moved out and married off, Blaise redecorated the townhouse into something of a bachelor pad, though from what Hermione heard he had a tendency to make himself available whenever the Montrose Magpies, Oliver Wood’s quidditch team, came through town.

Narcissa had joined Severus in France at one of the historic Malfoy homes across the Channel and though they swore their relationship was strictly platonic, a statement Draco was all too happy to accept at face value, Hermione had seen them together and didn’t quite buy it.

Harry and Ginny had broken up for a while after the war ended, each needing time to grieve and heal, but they eventually got back together and married, their first child, Ronald Severus, born seven months after the wedding. Snape’s reaction to that bit of news was positively priceless.

Harry had abandoned his aspirations of becoming an auror, confessing he had had more than enough violence and dark magic to last a lifetime, and had instead studied under Jarvis Grimstone, a broom-maker based in Wales, for two years before opening his own rather successful quidditch supply shop in Diagon Alley, which he and Ginny ran together. It was a quiet life and Hermione knew that he could not be more content with it.

Her own career was not quite as subdued. While she had briefly taken a position at the ministry after sitting her NEWTs - and receiving all Os, she might add - after a year and a half of making zero progress with her magical creature legislation, she had quit and finally taken Draco up on using a small fraction of the Malfoy fortune to open a series of nonprofits.

She partnered with Remus to jumpstart initiatives supporting affordable housing and job security for werewolves, as well as working with several brewers to make the wolfsbane potion more widely available throughout the UK. Her efforts to liberate house elves fell largely flat, but she did manage to lobby for several bits of legislation ensuring they at least had safe work environments and, if they wanted to leave their posts, they had the option to do so. This branch of her philanthropy was _not_ named S.P.E.W.

Kingsley remained Minister of Magic with Percy in line to take over when he eventually retired, and both had done all they could to assist Hermione with the various causes she championed. Despite his plans to incarcerate Dolores Umbridge for the unlawful use of Polyjuice potion, among numerous other offenses before and during the war, the witch mysteriously went missing while being held on house arrest several weeks before her trial. Hermione thoroughly questioned her then boyfriend about it, but neither he, nor Theo or Blaise, admitted to knowing anything about the disappearance. Frankly, Hermione didn’t press all that hard.

Draco, also performing impeccably on his NEWTs, had taken an apprenticeship at St. Mungo’s and was now working as a healer in their spell-damage ward. He was also conducting independent research into several specific maladies, including treating the after-effects of the cruciatus curse.

They both jumped when they heard the floo roar to life in the other room.

“I’ve got it,” Draco said, dropping a kiss on Hermione’s cheek before striding from the kitchen. Hermione gathered the plates she had pulled out of the cupboard and made her way out into the dining room, setting them on the table. Theo and Luna were standing and talking to Draco near the fireplace, but the conversation halted when Luna caught sight of Hermione.

“Oh, you’ve figured it out!” she said, bouncing in place and clapping her hands together before rushing over to pull the other witch into a tight hug.

“Of course, you knew,” Hermione sighed. “You couldn’t have told me? I spent the last two weeks convinced I had the flu.”

“What’s going on?” Theo asked, striding over and peeling his wife off Hermione, for which he received a grateful look.

“Hermione’s pregnant,” Draco clarified with a smirk, joining them near the table.

“Merlin’s beard, congratulations mate!” Theo exclaimed, clapping Draco on the shoulder before wrapping Hermione into another hug and kissing her cheek.

“What are we celebrating?” Ginny asked, her own distended stomach entering the room from the front parlour a couple of steps before she did.

“Just let yourselves in, why don’t you,” Draco scoffed.

“We did,” Harry replied with a cheeky grin, walking in behind her with four-year-old Ronald perched on his hip, who was clutching a stuffed owl.

“I’m pregnant,” Hermione said to Ginny, ignoring the boys’ antics.

“Oh, how wonderful!” she responded gleefully, pulling Hermione into a third embrace, who had to bend awkwardly around her rather large baby-bump.

“Well let’s not just stand here, dinner is getting cold,” Draco said finally, ushering everyone around the table. They took their seats and began passing plates, Ronald stuffing his mouth with mashed potatoes and then attempting to tell them all about a muggle toy his Grandpa Arthur had given him.

“Ron,” Hermione gently scolded from beside the gangly little boy, “don’t talk with your mouth full, it’s rude and you’ll choke.”

She looked up and met Harry’s eyes for a split second, and they shared a smile.

“Any ideas on a name yet?” Ginny asked from across the table.

“Draco wants to name it _Scorpius_ if it’s a boy,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes and accepting a basket of rolls from Ginny, who wrinkled her nose at the notion.

“What if you agree that if it’s a boy, he names it, and if it’s a girl, you name it?” Luna suggested airily from a little way down the table.

“I mean, that seems fair,” Draco said quickly in a forced nonchalant tone, sensing victory within his grasp.

Hermione glanced down at Luna and caught a quick wink.

“Alright sweetheart,” she sighed, raising her hands dramatically in defeat and leaning sideways to kiss her husband on the cheek, “it’s a deal.”

oOoOoOo

Celeste Evelyn Malfoy was born on 24 February 2006 and, like her godmother, was eventually sorted into Ravenclaw.

oOoOoOo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it then. This has been a positively wild ride that I could not have possibly predicted six months ago. I know it's not a masterpiece, and I'm certain there are plenty of errors scattered throughout the story, but I'm proud to have written it, and more grateful than I can say to all of you for coming along on the journey. 
> 
> I do have several other stories in the works, including a few Dramione tales, but for personal reasons it will probably be a little while before I begin posting any of them. 
> 
> That said, I will be sharing the oneshot that I mentioned in the notes of the last chapter. Who knows? I may end up playing a bit more in this universe as well. Theo/Luna, Blaise/Oliver, Narcissa/Severus... there are a few possibilities. 
> 
> Thank you to my boyfriend, my mom, TanzaniteWrites, LSUsweetie, JustLilyJade, and anyone else I made read my work. I appreciate you all. 
> 
> Have a good holiday season, and stay safe!
> 
> Until the very end,
> 
> WrathOfMacy


End file.
